EKU Physics, Geosciences, and Astronomy

Thanks to everyone who came by for our telescope viewing event. The weather was absolutely perfect for a night of stargazing! Here is one of the targets we looked at: The Running Man Nebula (as seen from one of our telescopes). Just a heads-up: weather permitting we always try to have at least one public viewing event every Fall and Spring semester. If the weather behaves, we may try to have more than one!

Come and see the sky tonight!

Join EKU's Department of EKU Physics, Geosciences, and Astronomy for a public telescope viewing Tuesday April 7th at 8:30pm!

We celebrated Pi Day early this year, but everyone enjoyed Dr. Fry’s pizza. Thanks to Provost Ziegler and Dean Otieno for joining us!

Congratulations to our graduates. Geology majors rock!!

The northern lights were visible from Kentucky last night, and may be so again tonight. The difference tonight is that we are blessed with clear skies. These aurora displays are the result of bursts of electrically-charged particles from the Sun striking our upper atmosphere. The eruptions (called corona mass ejections) often originate near clusters of sunspots, which you can see in this image taken from EKU's Science Building. Find yourself an unobstructed view of the northern sky tonight and set your phone camera to night imaging. You may be able capture some red, green, and/or purple lights along the horizon.

Dr. Fry in the news!

Eastern Kentucky University professor secures over $1M for student research Associate Professor Dr. Jason Fry has secured more than $1 million in research funding from the National Science Foundation.

Thanks to everyone who came out to the telescope deck to look at the heavens! Here are some highlights: the Andromeda Galaxy, the Hercules Cluster, and the Dumbbell Nebula.

We will be hosting another public telescope deck viewing session tomorrow (Oct 23) at 8pm. EKU's Telescope Deck is located at 100 Hancock Taylor Ln south of the main EKU campus.

Google Map Location: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.7267683,-84.3002576,138m/data=!3m1!1e3?authuser=0&entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MTAyMC4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

We will be viewing Saturn, the Andromeda Galaxy, as well as star clusters and nebulae. Be sure to bring a jacket as it will be in the 40s after sunset. Parking is available, but be aware that there are no restroom facilities on-site.

Hope to see you there!

Proud moment! Four of our Physics majors represented our department at the APS Division of Nuclear Physics 2025 Conference, sharing their research with scientists from across the nation.