Faculty

Vassar College Assistant Professor of Astronomy Colette Salyk recently joined a team of scientists at the Space Telescope Science Institute to analyze a flapping, “bat-like shadow” of a fledgling star’s planet-forming disk that had been captured by the Hubble Space Telescope.

Vassar Assistant Professor Colette Salyk and 25 other astronomers have published a paper announcing they have gathered new evidence about how planets are forming in other parts of the galaxy. The discovery sheds light on how our own solar system was formed.

Two members of the science faculty and 11 science majors joined hundreds of others in the field to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of Vassar’s first astronomy professor at the Maria Mitchell Association’s 2018 Women in Science Symposium Oct. 5 and 6 in Wellesley MA.

For nine weeks this summer, Vassar students and faculty engaged in independent research projects under the auspices of the Undergraduate Research Summer Institute.

On August 21, 2017, North America was the site of an eclipse of the Sun, the first in our hemisphere since 1979. Assistant Professor of Astronomy Colette Salyk answered a few questions about the eclipse and how to prepare for it.