Research group The Galaxy group

Arjan Bik at the Department of Astronomy has been promoted to docent. Arjan’s research focuses on the effect massive stars have on their surroundings, both at small scales (on proto-planetary discs), and on larger scales (on the interstellar medium inside star-forming galaxies).

On January 30th European Southern Observatory (ESO) signed an agreement for the construction of the Blue Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (BlueMUSE), an upcoming instrument for ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT). The signing marks a major first step in the development of BlueMUSE , which will offer new and unique science opportunities to astronomers. Its evolved technology will enable detailed observations within our galaxy and revolutionise the study of the distant Universe by allowing the detection of the diffuse material in the space between galaxies and helping us understand how matter moves within it. The Department of Astronomy at Stockholm University is a member of the consortium building the new instrument.

Angela Adamo and Ragnhild Lunnan at the Department of Astronomy have been appointed to docents.

A study led by Pablo Pérez-González at the Centro de Astrobiología in Spain with collaborating scientists from the Department of Astronomy at Stockholm University recently discovered nine galaxies that are candidates to being the most distant galaxies known. By using a combination of images taken with the NIRCam instrument on the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) these galaxies could be picked out from more nearby objects. The light coming from these galaxies was sent out a mere 100-200 million years after Big Bang, which means that they could be some of the very first galaxies formed in the universe.

Images taken with the MIRI infrared camera on the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have made it possible to observe the first galaxies in long-wavelength infrared light for the first time. Alongside a recent study published in Astronomy and Astrophysics, these images provide new insights into how the first galaxies formed over 13 billion years ago.

A new Perspective published in Nature Astronomy provides the most comprehensive snapshot yet of the Universe’s first Billion years, as revealed by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Drawn from the collective insights of an international assemblage of leading astronomers, the work charts a transformative moment in cosmic research—an era where science textbooks are being rewritten in real time.

The Vera Rubin Observatory's new LSST telescope is now operational, marking the start of a new era in astronomical research at the Oskar Klein Centre (OKC). With funding previously granted by the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation totaling SEK 30 million, OKC now significantly enhances its capability to explore fundamental questions about the universe.

The importance of Arctic methane emissions for the climate, how matter is formed and broken down, evolutionary shifts in the plant kingdom, and new effective methods for producing bioactive substances that will meet future needs for medicines and advanced electronics. These are just a few examples of basic research at Stockholm University that has received funding from the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation.

With the help of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, an international team of researchers led by scientists in the Department of Astronomy at Stockholm University has found more black holes in the early universe than has previously been reported. The new result can help scientists understand how supermassive black holes were created.

Understanding how stars and galaxies formed and evolved is one of astrophysics' biggest challenges. A new study led by Dr. Angela Adamo at Stockholm University offers fresh insights. Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), researchers studied the galaxy Cosmic Gems arc (SPT0615-JD), whose light was emitted 460 million years after the big bang. This galaxy, magnified by gravitational lensing, revealed five young massive star clusters. “The surprise and astonishment was incredible when we opened the JWST images for the first time” says Adamo. The Epoch of Reionization (EoR), within the first billion years after the big bang, saw the universe's transition from neutral hydrogen gas to ionized matter. Early galaxies are believed to have driven this change. Studying these galaxies requires observing distant objects, allowing us to "look back in time." Gravitational lensing, where a massive celestial body bends light like a magnifying glass, helps observe distant galaxies in detail.

Using the space telescope JWST, astronomers have examined one of the most distant known black holes in the universe. Their observations provide a glimpse of the growth of black holes in the early universe, less than a billion years after the Big Bang. Surprisingly, the early black hole in question seems to be “feeding” in much the same manner as its more recent kin. Astronomers have been struggling for a while now to explain how the earliest black holes gained their considerable masses. The new results all but rule out unusually efficient feeding mechanisms at early times as a possible solution. The results have been published in the journal Nature Astronomy. The first billion years of cosmic history pose a challenge: The earliest known black holes in the centers of galaxies have surprisingly large masses. How did they get so massive, so quickly? The new observations described here provide strong evidence against some proposed explanations, notably against an “ultra-effective feeding mode” for the earliest black holes.

An international team, led by Dr. Alexandra Le Reste from Stockholm University and the Oskar Klein Centre, used the MeerKAT radio telescope to investigate processes at the origin of the Epoch of Reionization, a crucial period occurring a billion years after the Big Bang. The study, made possible by MeerKAT's increased sensitivity relative to older telescopes, reveals how galaxy mergers might have influenced the transformation of the Universe during this epoch.

The James Webb telescope continues to capture spactacular images of spiral galaxies as part of Angela Adamos research at the Department of Astronomy. The most recent instalment is the galaxy M83.

Thanks to the James Webb Space Telescope’s first images of galaxy clusters, researchers have, for the very first time, been able to examine very compact structures of star clusters inside galaxies, so-called clumps. In a paper published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, researchers from Stockholm University have studied the first phase of star formation in distant galaxies.