Blandford’s major contributions range from energetic jets ripping forth from colossal black holes to cosmic “magnifying” glasses to gravitational waves.

Physicists propose that the influence of cosmic rays on early life may explain nature’s preference for a uniform “handedness” among biology’s critical molecules.

Stanford physics Professor Sarah Church will become the Freeman-Thornton Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education effective June 1, Provost Persis Drell announced today.

The Shaw Prize in Astronomy 2020 is awarded to Roger D. Blandford, Luke Blossom Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences and Professor at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Stanford University, USA, for his wide-ranging foundational contributions to theoretical astrophysics. This prestigious award is one way in which the Shaw Prize Foundation seeks to promote astronomy, a mission shared by the IAU, and which the two organisations have ongoing collaborations to pursue.

Just like we orbit the sun and the moon orbits us, the Milky Way has satellite galaxies with their own satellites. Drawing from data on those galactic neighbors, a new model suggests the Milky Way should have an additional 100 or so very faint satellite galaxies awaiting discovery.

Matching up maps of matter and light from the Dark Energy Survey and Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope may help astrophysicists understand what causes a faint cosmic gamma-ray glow.