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Over 1.5 billion objects in the Milky Way have been mapped in a project involving UCL researchers. Over the course of 13 years, the VISTA Variables in the Vía Láctea (VVV) survey and its extension, the VVV eXtended survey (VVVX), observed the central regions of the Milky Way. The surveys used VISTA (Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy), a European Southern Observatory (ESO) facility in Chile, with 420 nights of observation capturing approximately 200,000 images, generating 500 terabytes of scientific data.

The European Space Agency's Plato satellite, which will search for Earth-like planets orbiting the habitable zone of stars, is a step closer to launch after a UCL-led team delivered key electronics for the mission.

Our top-rated Physics department has made significant contributions to an innovative international project that's shedding new light on the mysteries of our universe.

A unique collaboration of astronomers and cancer researchers at Cambridge has been awarded more than £5m to establish the Spatial Profiling and Annotation Centre of Excellence (SPACE) to open up acces

A unique collaboration of astronomers and cancer researchers at Cambridge has been awarded more than £5m to establish the Spatial Profiling and Annotation Centre of Excellence (SPACE) to open up acces

The first satellite in the European Space Agency's Cluster quartet safely came back down to Earth on Sunday, marking a successful end to a decades-long mission involving UCL researchers.

We're part of an international team of astronomers who have been able to take a photograph of the halo of gas around a galaxy for the first time.

At the Festival of Engineering, VPEE Student Journalist Caroline Coyer attended the 'Interstellar Engineering' event and shared her insights on the exciting overlap between space exploration, medical advancements, and engineering.

New results from the LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) collaboration involving UCL researchers have put the best-ever limits on weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs), a leading candidate for what makes up our universe's invisible mass. Figuring out the nature of dark matter, the invisible substance that makes up most of the mass in our universe, is one of the greatest puzzles in physics.

The newly announced Ariel Data Challenge 2024, led by UCL researchers, is calling all data scientists, astronomers, and AI enthusiasts to help uncover the atmospheres of planets outside the solar system.

The European Southern Observatory (ESO) has signed an agreement for the design and construction of ANDES , the ArmazoNes high Dispersion Echelle Spectrograph.

Five new views of the Universe have been released today, captured by the European Space Agency's Euclid telescope, whose massive optical camera was designed and built by an international team led by UCL researchers.

Scientists have released the first set of scientific data captured with the Euclid telescope, showing an exciting glimpse of the Universe's distant past. The telescope, launched in July 2023, is part of the Dark Energy Satellite Mission , which aims to map the dark Universe. Led by t'he European Space Agency in collaboration with The Euclid Consortium - which includes astronomers at The University of Manchester in leadership positions - the mission seeks to unlock mysteries of dark matter and dark energy and reveal how and why the Universe looks as it does today.

The University of Southampton is leading the first ever study of the environmental impact of satellites burning up as they re-enter the Earth's atmosphere. Particles and gases - such as aluminium, lithium, chlorine and nitrogen oxide - are released as decommissioned satellites combust when they re-enter the atmosphere.

Researchers are seeking answers to some of the most elusive questions in fundamental physics at a brand-new experimental facility based at Cardiff University.

As India grapples once again with unprecedented summer temperatures, a project led by the University of Southampton in the UK is prioritising which areas of a major Indian city need 'cooling' green space. Extreme heat, with temperatures well above 40 degrees Celsius, has already hit parts of India this year.

On April 8, 2024, a remarkable natural phenomenon will captivate the world - a total solar eclipse.

A new image from the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration involving UCL's Dr Ziri Younsi has uncovered strong and organised magnetic fields spiralling from the edge of the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*). Seen in polarised light for the first time, this new view of the monster lurking at the heart of the Milky Way galaxy has revealed a magnetic field structure strikingly similar to that of the black hole at the centre of the M87 galaxy, suggesting that strong magnetic fields may be common to all black holes.

Scientists from the University of Southampton are using space technology to tackle infection control in hospitals - and help them cut their carbon emissions.

Jupiter's icy moon Europa has long been thought of as one of the most habitable worlds in the Solar System, but as Professor Andrew Coates (UCL Space & Climate Physics) writes in The Conversation, new atmosphere samples have raised questions over its potential to sustain life.

An international team of astronomers including UCL's Professor Mike Barlow has discovered the first conclusive evidence that a neutron star exists at the centre of Supernova 1987A, a star explosion observed 37 years ago. Supernovae are the spectacular end result of the collapse of stars more massive than 8-10 times the mass of the sun.

An instrument built by Imperial physicists is on its way to be fitted onto NASA's Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) spacecraft.

Reflectors placed in orbit around the Earth which reflect sunlight towards future solar power farms at dawn and dusk could help accelerate the transition to net-zero, researchers say. Space engineers from the University of Glasgow have published new research showing how kilometre-wide orbiting reflectors could boost the output of future large-scale solar farms by reflecting additional sunlight towards them even after the sun has set.