The Physics & Astronomy Department welcomes Assistant Professor Andrew Mann to the faculty. Andrew did his PhD at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, where his thesis was on the occurrence and habitability of planets orbiting cool stars. … Read more

Certain types of primitive meteorites contain micrometer-size dust grains with isotopic compositions vastly different from those of any other matter found in the solar system. The only viable explanation for their existence is that they condensed in stellar winds or … Read more

UNC-Chapel Hill scientist and colleagues develop precise calculation for axial coupling. Using the largest supercomputers in the country, scientists have reached a milestone decades in the making. The team, which includes a researcher from the University of North Carolina at Chapel … Read more

ASA DataFest 2018 @ Duke took place over the April 6-8, 2018 at Penn Pavillion with participation from over 380 students in 84 teams from nine schools (Duke, UNC, NC State, Wake Forest, Appalachian State University, NC A&T, NCSSM, College of William and Mary, Meredith). This … Read more

    On the morning of Tuesday, May 15th, the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is hosting the 4th grade classes from three schools in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools district … Read more

  At UNC-Chapel Hill’s Last Lecture on April 19, professor Dan Reichart described the vast span of humankind’s history and place in time, then shared his concept of civilizational momentum and made bold predictions.

    John Lattanzio is an astrophysicist who works on understanding stars and how they make the elements that comprise our world. He serves as President of the International Astronomical Union’s Commission on Stellar Evolution and is a professor in … Read more

  UNC’s Evryscope has detected a superflare that briefly made the tiny star Proxima Centauri (https://arxiv.org/pdf/1804.02001.pdf), the nearest star to our Sun, near100x brighter. Proxima Centauri hosts a likely terrestrial-mass planet in its habitable-zone, but Proxima Centauri’s extreme stellar activity casts doubt on … Read more

Neutrinos are very small particles which react weakly with mass.  Measuring their reactions involves an environment with incredibly low background radiation and interference.  The MAJORANA Demonstrator experiment is a collaboration of 129 researchers from 27 institutions and 6 countries which … Read more

Michael Antonacci, Physics and Astronomy Graduate working in Dr. Branca’s lab, has been selected as a Dean’s Graduate Fellow in the College of Art and Science for the Academic Year 2018-2019. Michael distinguished himself as outstanding researcher and teacher. As … Read more

An article by Alyssa Lafaro featuring Prof. Drut’s research was published in UNC’s Endeavors magazine. The article describes the kind of work done by Drut’s group as they develop and apply computational methods to quantum many-body problem. In their work, Drut’s … Read more

An article co-authored by Prof. Laurie McNeil of the UNC Physics & Astronomy Department was published in the November 2017 issue of Physics Today.  The article describes the report Phys21: Preparing Physics Students for 21st Century Careers prepared by the … Read more