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An artist’s impression of an X-ray binary star system.

New insights on binary star systems

Researchers from the University of Oxford have contributed to a major international study which has captured a rare and fascinating space phenomenon. The study has been published in Nature.

Just some of the 64 antennae that make up MeerKAT in South Africa

New intel on radio pulsars

An international team of scientists has published the largest pulsar survey to date.

24 February 2023

Image of a galaxy taken by the James Webb Space Telescope

New Webb imagery pierces through the dust

New imagery from Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument is revealing never-before-seen details into how young, newly forming stars influence the structure of the gas and dust of nearby galaxies, and therefore how they evolve over time.

16 February 2023

A planet in the foreground and two male scientists in the background

A journey Into the Cosmos

On Saturday 21 January, nearly 1,000 curious visitors came to the Department of Physics to take a trip into the cosmos.

1 February 2023

Clockwise from top left: Sneha Malde, Gavin Dalton, Paolo Radaelli, Aris Karastergiou and Matt Jarvis

Excellence in research supervision

Five academics in the Department of Physics have been recognised in the Mathematical, Physical and Life Sciences Division’s inaugural Awards for Outstanding Research Supervision.

18 January 2023

Just some of the 64 antennae that make up MeerKAT in South Africa

RAS recognition for MeerKAT

The MeerKAT Team has been awarded the Royal Astronomical Society’s 2023 Group Achievement Award for Astronomy.

13 January 2023

Oxford experiment in space

Oxford students successfully send an experiment into space

In November 2021, a team of graduate students from Oxford teamed up with the International Space School Educational Trust (ISSET) to turn the ideas of secondary school children into real experiments for launch to the International Space Station.

20 December 2022

Location of the EHT telescopes seen from the direction of the black hole in the Galactic centre as the Earth rotates.

Grant to build new telescope in Africa to enable colour movies of black holes

The European Research Council (ERC) has awarded a Synergy Grant, named BlackHolistic, of 14 million Euro to a team of British, Dutch, Finnish and Namibian astronomers to make colour movies of black holes.

14 December 2022

Professor Stephen Smartt

Meet...Stephen Smartt

We work among extraordinary people doing extraordinary things; get to know some of them by reading these quick-fire interviews.

12 December 2022

The JWST image with the WEAVE LIFU pointing at Stephan's Quintet for the first-light observation.

UK-led robotic sky scanner reveals its first galactic fingerprint

A major telescope upgrade has peered through to the distant Universe to reveal the spectra of a pair of galaxies 280 million light years away from Earth.

12 December 2022

Dr Nick Bultinck, left, and Dr James Matthews, right

Royal Society University Research Fellows join Physics

The Department of Physics is delighted to welcome two Royal Society University Research Fellows: Dr Nick Bultinck and Dr James Matthews.

12 December 2022

This image taken by the James Webb Space Telescope highlights the region of study by the JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey (JADES).

Webb latest: new milestone in search for distant galaxies

An international team of astronomers, including scientists at the Universities of Hertfordshire, Cambridge and Oxford, has today reported the discovery of the earliest galaxies ever confirmed in our Universe thanks to the James Webb Space Telescope.

9 December 2022