News | Steward Observatory

NASA's SPHEREx mission will use software from the Arizona Cosmology Lab to answer questions about the first moments after the Big Bang

By creating the largest 3D map of galaxies that has ever existed, SPHEREx will help scientists answer big-picture questions about why the large-scale structure of the universe looks the way it does today, how galaxies form and evolve and the abundance of water and other key ingredients for life in the Milky Way galaxy.

How next-gen telescopes could discover extraterrestrial oxygen

Interior view of the Giant Magellan Telescope at night. The University of Arizona is a major partner in the telescope, and is creating all its mirrors.

Sharper image: U of A-built instrument reveals pictures of 'baby planets'

Donuts of dust: An artist’s impression of the PDS 70 system with protoplanets, each surrounded by dust rings illuminated by starlight. The planets themselves (not to scale) have thin rings of plasma heated to around 14,000 degrees Fahrenheit, which glow at the red emission line of H-alpha light.

Steward Observatory astronomer Erika Hamden named to Arizona Space Commission

Erika Hamden

Steward Observatory's Peter Behroozi ranked among most cited researchers in the world

Peter Behroozi

Astronomy has lost one of its most passionate chasers of total solar eclipses with the passing of astronomer Glenn Schneider

GLENN SCHNEIDER, 1955–2025

Highest Presidential Honor Bestowed on Steward Observatory Astronomers, Highlighting the Department’s Preeminence in Theory, Data and Computation

Gurtina Besla and Kaitlin Kratter

Spectra from a carbon dioxide world: Astronomers unlock the atmospheric secrets of a 'new class of planet'

Artist’s impression of GJ 1214 b passing in front of its host star. The “transit method” allows astronomers to study an exoplanet by seeing which wavelengths of light dim when the star’s light passes through the exoplanet atmosphere.

Tucson doctor wins national award for his second act as amateur astronomer

Richard Donnerstein

NASA's Pandora mission one step closer to probing alien atmospheres, with mission operations based at U of A

An artist's concept of the Pandora mission, seen here without the thermal blanketing that will protect the spacecraft, observing a star and its transiting exoplanet.