Author: Heising-Simons Foundation

Artemis, the first ground-based telescope of the SPECULOOS (Search for habitable Planets EClipsing ULtra-cOOl Stars) Northern Observatory, has completed installation and is officially hunting for Earth-like exoplanets in the Northern Hemisphere.

How universal is Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation? We already know that this law does not apply when the gravitational force is very strong (like near a black hole). And when the gravitational force is very weak (like between two billiard balls) we don’t really know if Newton’s Law applies or not, because such a tiny force is very difficult to measure.

The Foundation supports innovative and scalable initiatives to promote a more inclusive and diverse physics and astronomy braintrust. We hope to inspire more such efforts from the funders’ community, and within academic institutions.

With support from the Heising-Simons Foundation, the Division of Physical Sciences at UC San Diego has established the Margaret Burbidge Visiting Professorship, part of an effort to bring eminent female physicists to the university for collaborative research within its Department of Physics. Three visiting professors from Columbia University, ESPCI Paris, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign will fill the inaugural role beginning in the fall.