The universe is awaiting your exploration
The Department Astronomy & Planetary Science at Northern Arizona University offers various bachelor’s degrees, and a doctoral degree.
The department has a small, family feeling. At NAU, your instructors will know you by name; they are easily accessible, and they genuinely care about student success. Lecture courses are taught almost exclusively by full-time faculty. Both undergraduate and graduate students are routinely and deeply involved in faculty research.
The sense of community I felt while at NAU is something I very much miss.
– recent graduate who is now a PhD candidate
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By the numbers
102
Merged Physics/Astro Majors56
Astronomy Majors17
Astronomy Minors26
Undergraduate Researchers27
Phd StudentsResearch spotlight
News
For a complete listing of all news articles, please visit our news page.
From slime to rockets: Killip Elementary hosts first STEM Night
Along the adjacent hallway, students traversed through a scale model of the inner solar system, replicated with notecards hanging from the ceiling to show the distance between the planets. Erin Aadland, a doctoral candidate in NAU’s Astronomy and Planetary Science program who set up the model, said she was impressed by students’ knowledge of the solar system.“It’s not all new information for them,” Aadland said. “I think they have a better understanding of the solar system than I ever did…
From Dubai to Mars, With Stops in Colorado and Japan - The New York Times
The United Arab Emirates used a novel approach to build the Hope spacecraft, which launches for the red planet this summer. [NAU's Christopher Edwards is part of this team] The Hope robotic probe in Colorado. The ruler of Dubai wanted to offer inspiration for youth in the wider Arab world. “That’s why he called the spacecraft Hope,” said Omran Sharaf, the mission’s project manager.Photo Credit: Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Center Published Feb. 15, 2020Updated Feb. 18,…
NAU Scientists Map Hidden Water Ice On Mars | KNAU Arizona Public Radio
Scientists at Northern Arizona University mapped frozen water hidden just below the surface of Mars, with the goal of finding the best spots for future astronauts to visit. KNAU’s Melissa Sevigny reports. Mars Credit NASA/JPL-Caltech/USGS Buried water ice influences the temperature of a planet’s surface. The team used heat-sensing instruments on two orbiting spacecraft to map fluctuations in temperature during different seasons on Mars. They crunched the data in Northern Arizona University’s supercomputer to make…
Tip of the ICEBERG: NAU planetary scientists developing large-scale ‘imagery-computing superhighway’ – NAU News
Scientists are creating ways to compile and interpret an abundance of high-resolution satellite images on a continental scale to better understand Antarctica, Arizona and the world. The same sophisticated satellite imaging techniques being developed to map and identify the size and composition of uncharted land in Antarctica soon may help scientists produce finely detailed geologic maps of the Lower Colorado River Corridor and better understand its geologic history. Mark Salvatore, an assistant professor in Northern Arizona University’s Department of Astronomy…
Events
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