We use world-class facilities to create and utilize digital “all-sky” surveys to study aspects of the Milky Way galaxy. Researchers at BU are investigating how massive stars form, identifying new star forming regions, probing the chemical and dynamical evolution of the Galaxy using M and L dwarfs, measuring Galactic magnetic fields, characterizing distant stellar clusters, and tracing Galactic structure and kinematics using molecular clouds, star forming regions and low-mass stars.

Our data come from a diverse collection of public and BU owned or shared telescope facilities that include (but are not limited to) the Green Bank Telescope, Mopra, and Arecibo radio telescopes, the ALMA and CARMA millimeter arrays, the 42 telescope at Lowell Observatory, the 4.3m Lowell Discovery Telescope on which BU astronomers have guaranteed time, and our own Perkins Telescope Observatory a 1.8m optical-infrared telescope outside Flagstaff, Arizona.

Faculty with Related Research

  • Thomas Baniaradio spectroscopy, galactic structure, interstellar medium
  • Dan Clemensgalactic structure, interstellar medium, magnetic fields, star formation, infrared and optical astronomy