The Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences at the University of Colorado teaches and researches the areas of Astrophysics & Astronomy, Planetary Science, Fluid Dynamics, Plasma Physics, Solar Physics, and Space Physics. The APS Department has 25 rostered faculty, roughly 45 research and affiliated faculty, 54 graduate students, and 160 undergraduate majors.

Read the latest about us in the Fall 2012 Department Newsletter! (3 MB PDF Download)

	APS News The Sloan 2.5 m telescope at Apache Point, NM. CU Boulder has become a full institutional member of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey-IV, which will map the Northern sky in three dimensions to learn more about the structure and evolution of the universe. Read more... CU Boulder's Fiske Planetarium, directed by APS Professor Doug Duncan, will undergo a complete upgrade, transforming the planetarium into one of the most advanced theaters in the country. Read more... CU-Boulder has been chosen as the new site for the headquarters of the National Solar Observatory. The new headquarters will be the primary science, instrument development and data analysis site for the Advanced Technology Solar Telescope, a 4m solar telescope which will observe the magnetic and dynamical processes underlying solar activity with 0.026 arcsec diffraction limited resolution (430nm, 16km on the surface of the Sun). Faculty should use the new online mentor form for undergraduate mentoring (password required). Students can access a printable version to fill in to prepare for mentoring appointments Professor Jeremy Darling has been selected as the recipient of a 2011 Provost Faculty Achievement Award. Award ceremony TBA. Professor Jim Green has been selected as one of this year's winners of the Boulder Faculty Assembly Award for Research, Scholarly, and Creative Work for his work on the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph. See the award citation here. The CU-Boulder-involved CCAT (Cornell-Caltech-Atacama Telescope) is a $110 million telescope in Chile that, when built, will be used to probe distant galaxies and stellar nurseries. It has been named as the top construction priority for mid-sized, ground-based telescopes by the National Research Council for the coming decade. Read more ...

	Current Projects Professor Jason Glenn is leading CU-Boulder's involvement in the design and construction of the Cornell-Caltech-Atacama Telescope (CCAT), a 25-meter sub-millimeter telescope to be located in Chile's Atacama desert. CCAT will study solar systems, stars, and galaxies at the earliest stages of their formation. Professors John Bally, Jack Burns, Webster Cash, Jeremy Darling, and Michael Shull are also involved in the CCAT project. Professor Jack Burns is leading CU-Boulder's involvement in the $6.5 million NASA-funded Lunar Science Institute "LUNAR" to study gravitational physics, solar physics and particle acceleration, and low-frequency cosmology applied to times when the Universe was in its infancy. ARC Telescope Proposal Form: More information on the ARC 3.5-m telescope and how to propose an observation. Be sure to visit our ongoing faculty research for more information.

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