51��

Audience

Research theme

Sub-department

An aerial view of ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) at Paranal in Chile's sparsely populated Atacama Desert

New insights into Neptune's dark spot

Astronomers, led by Professor Patrick Irwin from the University of Oxford, have observed a large dark spot in Neptune’s atmosphere, with an unexpected smaller bright spot adjacent to it.

Professor Paolo Radaelli

Professor Radaelli recognised by IOP

Professor Paolo Radaelli has been awarded the Institute of Physics’ and the Italian Physical Society’s Giuseppe Occhialini Medal and Prize.

Beecroft building

Exciting new fellowship opportunities for theoretical physicists

We are looking for the most talented early-career theoretical physicists worldwide to join us here at the Rudolf Peierls Centre for Theoretical Physics in Oxford.

A computed-aided design model of the Lunar Trailblazer spacecraft

Oxford University-built instrument ready to map water on the Moon

A thermal imaging camera built by the University of Oxford’s Department of Physics will form an integral part of NASA’s Lunar Trailblazer mission, scheduled to launch in 2024.

The orange dots denote the phenotype robustness of different RNA secondary structure phenotypes for length 15 RNA strands versus the fraction f of the total space of sequences that map to that phenotype. The maximum robustness curve (a fractal line) is exactly achieved by some of the RNA secondary structure phenotypes.

Number theory and evolutionary genetics

An interdisciplinary team of mathematicians, engineers, physicists, and medical scientists have uncovered an unexpected link between pure mathematics and genetics.

Nicola Rotolo

Meet...Nicola Rotolo

We work among extraordinary people doing extraordinary things; get to know some of them by reading these quick-fire interviews.

Yuanmin Zhang

Meet...Yuanmin Zhang

We work among extraordinary people doing extraordinary things; get to know some of them by reading these quick-fire interviews.

Students sitting in a lecture theatre

A UNIQ experience

In July, the Department of Physics welcomed 40 students as part of UNIQ, the University of Oxford’s access programme for state school students with a focus on underrepresented groups.

Sophia Vaughan

Commentary: Sophia Vaughan on searching for an exo-rainbow

DPhil student Sophia Vaughan comments on her work with an international collaboration on how the search for exo-rainbows could soon reveal an Earth-like planet.

An infrared image taken as part of the JADES programme (the JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey), showing a portion of an area of the sky known as GOODS-South where the observation in the study was made.

The dust of ages

The James Webb Space Telescope detects interstellar dust grains in the first billion years of cosmic time

Emeritus Savilian Professor Joe Silk

Why we need to go back to the Moon

Emeritus Professor Joe Silk on why we need to go back to the Moon

Clockwise from top left: Dr Glenn Wagner, Professor Steve Simon, Dr Yves Kwan, Professor Siddharth Parameswaran and Dr Nick Bultinck

Oxford theorists recognised with Frontiers of Science Award

A team of physicists from Oxford’s Rudolf Peierls Centre for Theoretical Physics has received a Frontiers of Science Award at the First International Congress of Basic Science in Beijing, China.