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Astrophysical Sciences and Technology MS

An RIT student is on a mission to help build detectors that could identify individual photons from distant, inhabitable planets. Justin Gallagher, a fifth-year student from Rochester, N.Y., pursuing his BS in physics and MS in astrophysical sciences and technology, is serving as project manager for a nearly $1 million grant funded by NASA to create a single photon sensing and number resolving detector for NASA missions.

NASA mentions Joel Kastner, professor in the Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science and School of Physics and Astronomy, and alumnus David Principe '10 Ph.D. (astrophysical science and technology) for being part of a team that observed an X-ray flare from a very young star using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory.

NASA features Joel Kastner, a professor in RIT’s Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science and School of Physics and Astronomy, and astrophysical science and technology Ph.D. students Jesse Bublitz and Paula Moraga on their latest Hubble telescope observations.

Universe Today features Joel Kastner, professor in the Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science, and astrophysical sciences and technology Ph.D. students Annie Dickson-Vandervelde and Emily Wilson.

Scientists from RIT have discovered a newborn massive planet closer to Earth than any other of similarly young age found to date. The baby giant planet lies only about 330 light years from our solar system. The discovery, published in the Research Notes of the American Astronomical Society, provides researchers an exciting new way to study how gas giants form.

A team from RIT and the Instituto Argentino de Radioastronomía (IAR) upgraded two radio telescopes in Argentina that lay dormant for 15 years in order to study pulsars, rapidly rotating neutron stars with intense magnetic fields that emit notably in radio wavelengths. The project is outlined in a new paper published in Astronomy and Astrophysics.

A graduate culture is taking root at RIT with more Ph.D. students on the main campus than ever before, and the Office of Graduate Education is building on the momentum.

Futurism cites research by Richard O’Shaughnessy, assistant professor in the School of Mathematical Sciences.

A team of RIT researchers is helping launch an experiment above the atmosphere to better understand extragalactic background light, which traces the history of galaxies back to the formation of the first stars in the universe.

Scientists have reported detecting gravitational waves from 10 black hole mergers to date, but they are still trying to explain the origins of those mergers. The largest merger detected so far seems to have defied previous models because it has a higher spin and mass than the range thought possible. A group of researchers, including RIT Assistant Professor Richard O’Shaughnessy, has created simulations that could explain how the merger happened.

The planet Mercury will pass directly across the sun next week for the last time until 2032, and RIT faculty and students will help the community view the rare event. Members of the RIT Observatory will set up telescopes for public use from 7:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 11, in the Infinity Quad on the RIT campus.

The Christian Science Monitor talks to Manuela Campanelli, professor and director of the Center for Computational Relativity and Gravitation.