News/Events

For  Duncan Lorimer and  Maura McLaughlin, working at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico set off a sequence of life events that would include marriage, children, finding a home at  West Virginia University, an out-of-this-world scientific discovery and, now, earning a highly prestigious award described as the “Nobel Prize of the East.”

Over the past summer, the West Virginia University Department of Physics and Astronomy welcomed undergraduate students from all over the country to live on campus and work closely with a selected research mentor, learning all about astrophysics, astronomy, and instrumentation from the experts. The Astrophysics Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) is a National Science Foundation (NSF) funded program that offers the opportunity for undergraduate students to explore all facets of research while gaining insights into diverse training topics. 

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – More than two dozen researchers with ties to West Virginia University have helped unearth evidence of ripples in space time that have never been observed before.

Residing in the heart of a dwarf galaxy four billion light years away is a mysterious cosmological object producing bursts of energy that only last a few milliseconds. New research about this Fast Radio Burst (FRB) has revealed a rarely seen astronomical environment around its source, where magnetic fields twist, turn, and undulate over time. This is the first detection of a magnetic field reversal observed from an FRB, and the first time this behavior has been observed in another galaxy.

West Virginia has some of the darkest skies around, which often goes unnoticed in the hustle and bustle of our everyday life. The WVU Planetarium and Observatory has a special interest in preserving the beauty and clarity of the night sky.  

West Virginia students learn how to map the Galaxy to better understand our Universe.