University of Utah Physics & Astronomy

The University of Utah is hosting the IceCube Neutrino Telescope Collaboration Meeting from October 6–10, 2025.
Using the Antarctic ice at the geographic South Pole as a detection medium, this novel telescope observes the Universe in fundamentally new ways, uncovering the secrets of supermassive black holes, the most energetic processes in the cosmos, and the nature of dark matter.

On the evening of October 8, we will host a special Q&A session with two IceCube winterovers, Kalvin Moschkau and Connor Duffy, who spent a year in Antarctica operating the instrument. The event will also feature the U.S. premiere of Messengers, a film about scientific endeavors at the South Pole, with director Jeffrey Zablotny in attendance.

Prof. Dan Hooper, Director of the Wisconsin IceCube Particle Astrophysics Center, and Prof. Carsten Rott, Jack W. Keuffel Chair and Chair of the Department of Physics & Astronomy at the University of Utah, will be available for questions.

The event will take place on Oct 8th at 7pm at the Katherine W. and Ezekiel R. Dumke Jr. Auditorium @ the University of Utah. This event is free to the public and everybody is invited to attend.

Meet our observatory crew from the UofU South Physics Observatory at Rockport state park for a star party! 7/26/24 at 9pm!

The Utah Astronomy Club meeting on Wednesday, July 10, offers a chance to participate in one of the most exciting research projects in astronomy, the examination of dark matter.

Lindsay House, a PhD candidate in astronomy at the University of Texas, Austin, will discuss the worldwide citizen science project that she launched, Dark Energy Explorers. The project has enlisted nearly 17,000 volunteers from more than 140 countries, who have helped to classify more than 6.5 million galaxies. The work is aimed at learning more about the mysterious force dubbed dark energy, which cosmologists say is accelerating the universe’s expansion.

Observations of galaxies give an indication of the action of dark energy, whatever it is.

Ms. House is a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow and a recipient of the NASA Citizen Science Seed Funding Grant. Her research involves the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment. The telescope, which is 30 feet across, is one of the largest optical instruments in the world. Based at McDonald Observatory in Texas, it is operated by a consortium of institutions including the University of Texas, Austin.

She said she wants to cultivate an inclusive online situation where all may feel they can participate in the research, no matter what their background is.

She will address the club via Zoom at its monthly meeting Wednesday, July 10, at 8 p.m. The sessions are held on the fourth floor of the South Physics Building, University of Utah, 115 S. 1400 East, Salt Lake City.

All club meetings are free and open to the public. Usually they last about an hour, and visitors should be careful to obey the university's parking rules.

Afterward, attendees are invited upstairs to the University's astronomical observatory on the roof, assuming the weather allows.

Thank you,

Joe Bauman, club coordinator

Photo: Ms. House

Astronomers find missing link in massive black hole formation - @theU ‘Once-in-a-career kind of finding’—the discovery is the best candidate for intermediate-mass black holes that astronomers have long believed to exist but have never found.

X-class flare today!
Solar viewing today
7PM
Watch in real time!
Find us here for location & parking: https://www.physics.utah.edu/outreach/spo/

The College of Science put together this great post featuring imagery from Paul Ricketts May 10-11. Click this link to see the timelapse video: https://youtu.be/_ONFLG-BdAM?si=QqATCYSWnySmYhR-

These stunning photos of the aurora borealis were captured by the talented Paul Ricketts, director of the @uofu_southphysicsobservatory and astrophotographer, last Friday May 10, west of Ogden, Utah. ✨💫 Thanks to Paul for capturing this incredible scene!

Paul Ricketts, South Physics Observatory Interpretive Specialist and the team of AstronomUrs will be at the annual Bryce Canyon Astronomy Festival with telescopes and opportunities to visit with astronomers.

June 5-8, 2024
Highway 63 Park Road #1, Bryce Canyon City, UT 84764

See details at the official website: https://www.nps.gov/brca/planyourvisit/astrofest.htm

Aurora photos were taken just across the border in SW Montana with an Applie iphone 15 Pro Max - no editing.
By Julie Callahan