Oxford Astrophysics

Astrophysics at Oxford

NGC 7635, The Bubble Nebula, imaged with the Wetton Telescope (Fraser Clarke)

Astrophysics is taught at Oxford as part of the undergraduate Physics degree, with both option and core courses in astrophysics, and the opportunity of an astrophysics project in the final year.

• Physics department and undergraduate course information

Astrophysics research and graduate study is carried out in two sub-departments of the Physics department. You are currently reading the web page of the Sub-department of Astrophysics.

• Contact & visitor travel information
• Other information
• Events
• Wetton Telescope
• Computing:
• Physics IT support
• Wireless registration
• AstroWiki

There is also a Theoretical Astrophysics Group in the Rudolf Peierls Centre for Theoretical Physics.

News: Kevin Schawinski wins RAS prize

2009 September 4

An Oxford thesis has earned its author a prestigious prize. Kevin Schawinski, a graduate student from 2004-07, has been awarded the 2009 Royal Astronomical Society Michael Penston Astronomy Prize for the best doctoral thesis in Astronomy or Astrophysics. His thesis entitled 'The Star Formation History of Early-type Galaxies' explored how galaxies assemble and stars form over the 13.7 billion year history of the Universe. It proposed a link between a galaxy's star formation history, mass and the presence and activity of a massive black hole in galaxy nuclei.

During his time in Oxford Kevin was a founding member of the Galaxy Zoo team, who have recruited almost 250,000 volunteers to help in their research.

Kevin is the first Oxford DPhil student to win this prize and he currently holds a Chandra Fellowship at Yale.

The thesis was supervised by Sukyoung Yi (now at Yonsei, Korea), Gavin Dalton & Daniel Thomas (now at Portsmouth).