Scientists may add a new dwarf planet to the official roster of our solar system.

The distant, icy body, provisionally dubbed 2026 ED138, orbits our system beyond Pluto. It was spotted earlier this month by a scientist combing through data from the Simonyi Survey Telescope at the . Initial measurements place ED138 among the largest dwarf planet candidates ever discovered beyond Neptune; if confirmed, it would join the five dwarf planets recognized by the : Pluto, Ceres, Eris, Haumea and Makemake.

The results were presented at a press conference today by , a senior astrophysicist at the Harvard & Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and by , a ������˾�� professor of astronomy and leader of Rubin’s solar system team. Holman first spotted the candidate and Jurić contributed additional observations.

“If confirmed as a dwarf planet, ED138 would join a very small family of worlds,” Holman said. “Rubin will image the whole southern sky again and again for 10 years, so any others hiding in the places earlier surveys skipped are now within reach.”

“Finding an object this big, roughly 1,000 kilometers across, is something that happens maybe once in a generation,” Jurić said. “It’s the largest trans-Neptunian object found in about 20 years, and Rubin turned it up while we were still commissioning the telescope.”

On the evening of Oct. 13, Holman was running data collected by Rubin earlier in 2026 through a search code he developed with colleague Kevin Napier. The code is built to look at billions of detections of moving objects, compare them and find the detections that correspond to the same object. Using this method, Holman uncovered ED138, and he immediately noticed that its brightness and distance indicated that it is unusually large.

“My first reaction was one of excited disbelief,” Holman said. “Objects like this are very rare, so I immediately started checking whether I or the code had done something wrong.”

To remove any doubt, Jurić searched through Rubin’s catalogs and images and found 20 more observations, going back to March 2026. The team also spotted ED138 in archival images from other surveys going all the way back to 2016, allowing the team to trace more than ten years of ED138’s orbit. 

ED138 is currently at a distance of about 46 astronomical units (), where 1 au is the average distance between the Earth and the sun. For reference, dwarf planet Pluto orbits at an average distance of 40 au. This classifies ED138 as a trans-Neptunian object () — objects that orbit the sun at a distance greater than Neptune’s.

Scientists study the size, composition and orbital trajectories of TNOs to understand how the solar system formed, how the giant planets migrated over time and how smaller objects have been scattered throughout this evolution. 

Not all TNOs are considered dwarf planet candidates, with the distinction being in the size and shape of the object. To be a dwarf planet an object needs to be massive enough for its own gravity to pull it into a round shape. Based on ED138’s distance, brightness and estimated surface reflectivity, the team estimates that its size is between 600 and 1,500 kilometers; icy bodies this large are expected to be round. Further observations are needed to measure its exact size and confirm its nature as a dwarf planet. 

ED138 was found in a region of sky close to the plane of the Milky Way — a crowded area filled with millions of stars. To most telescopes, ED138 has been lost among the myriad background sources, which is likely why it was not discovered until now. Rubin Observatory’s regular and continuous monitoring of the entire Southern Hemisphere sky, combined with powerful algorithms that sift through millions to billions of points of light to identify those corresponding to small moving objects, enabled the team to spot ED138 within the crowded field.

ED138 joins the rapidly growing sample of solar system objects discovered by Rubin since it began collecting early data in preparation for the (LSST), which began in June 2026. In April, before LSST formally began, the Rubin solar system team announced observations of over , which included roughly 380 new TNOs. At the time, the team called this large submission “the tip of the iceberg” and expressed their excitement for the discoveries to come once LSST began. With the discovery of ED138, those hopes are coming to fruition.

“Rubin is giving us an unprecedented capacity to explore the sky through a combination of speed, depth, and precision,” Jurić said. “And the discovery is just the beginning: Once we identify a new object, we can search back months, and sometimes even decades, finding it in images where nobody knew to look. This ability to both discover and ‘precover’ objects is transforming how quickly and accurately we can determine their orbits and understand the distant solar system.”

The public can interact with this discovery on , an interactive web-based app that provides an intuitive way to explore the structure of our cosmic backyard in three dimensions and in real time.

Operations of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory are funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science.

For more information, contact Mario Jurić at mjuric@uw.edu.

This story was adapted from a press release by NOIRlab. More images and video clips are available on the .

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On August 5, 2026, the ������˾�� published proposed amendments to:

• Chapter 478-121 WAC, Student Conduct Code for the ������˾�� (), and
• Chapter 478-124 WAC, General Conduct Code for the ������˾�� ().

Following publication, the University accepted written comments on the proposed rules through August 25, 2026, and held a public hearing on August 25, 2026, to receive oral comments.

To provide additional opportunity for public review and comment on the proposed amendments, the University is extending the comment period beginning October 21, 2026, through December 10, 2026.

Information about the proposed rules and instructions for submitting public comments are available on the University Policy and Rules website:

• Student Conduct Code, Chapter 478-121 WAC – University Policy and Rules Office
• General Conduct Code, Chapter 478-124 WAC – University Policy and Rules Office

Individuals may contact the University Policy and Rules Office with questions about the rule making or to request copies of the proposed rules.

������˾�� Policy and Rules Office
Barbara Lechtanski, Director of Rules Coordination
Box 351237, Seattle, WA 98195
Email: rules@uw.edu

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The ������˾�� Class of 2030 was welcomed officially at the University’s 43rd annual New Student Convocation held Sunday morning in Alaska Airlines Arena at Hec Edmundson Pavilion.

New Student Convocation is one of two landmark occasions where the University president, the Board of Regents, the deans of the schools and colleges, and the faculty gather in academic regalia for a ceremony focused on students. The other is the graduation ceremony, Commencement. These two events are the seminal bookend events of a college career.

Students heard from President Robert J. Jones, Vice President for Student Life Denzil Suite, Vice Provost and Dean of Undergraduate Academic Affairs Ed Taylor and others.

Alexes Harris, the Gordon Hirabayashi Professor for the Advancement of Citizenship and a professor of sociology in the College of Arts & Sciences, was the featured faculty speaker. Harris’ research fundamentally centers on issues of inequality, poverty and race in United States’ legal systems. In 2022, Harris was appointed by Gov. Jay Inslee to serve as the inaugural faculty representative to the Board of Regents. She is also the chair of the Department of American Ethnic Studies and the UW faculty athletics representative.

Following the Convocation ceremony, incoming students formed a giant block “W” on the field inside Husky stadium.

Preliminary fast facts on the incoming class:

• Preliminary figures project the incoming first-year class at UW Seattle at about 7,455 students.
• Around 4,720 first-year students, or about 63%, are projected to be from Washington state.
• An additional 1,719 transfer students are projected to enroll at the UW’s Seattle campus this fall, including about 1,457 from Washington community colleges.
• UW Bothell is projecting about 1,153 first-year students and 660 transfer students.
• UW Tacoma is projecting 730 first-year students and 730 transfer students.

Official enrollment data will be announced later in the quarter.

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Some arrive looking for information about attending or applying. Others need to log into MyUW, the University’s online portal for students, faculty and staff. Visitors may be looking for the latest research discovery, searching for a resource, seeking care at UW Medicine or simply landing on the page through a search engine. Serving such a broad mix of audiences meant the redesign had to go well beyond a visual update.

The new UW homepage, launching on Sept. 30, is the result of nearly two years of work that began with a review of user behavior, analytics and the existing homepage experience. That work grew into a broader effort spanning research, strategy, design and development to rethink how the site can better serve its audiences, tell the UW story and evolve alongside the institution.

“The ������˾��’s homepage is more than a website. It is an expression of our public mission, our academic offerings and the impact our students, faculty and staff are making every day,” said UW President Robert J. Jones. “This redesign gives us a stronger way to reflect the excellence, energy and impact of the UW.”

It has been more than a decade since the University’s homepage has undergone a major transformation of this scale, and the project began with research rather than design.

The University Marketing & Communications team examined a full year of homepage analytics, surveyed users, studied peer university websites and evaluated the existing experience to understand what was working and where there were opportunities to improve. The volume and breadth of usage alone makes those decisions consequential. Over the year studied, the homepage recorded more than 2.7 million users across 4 million sessions.

Input extended well beyond the analytics. In the early stages of the project, hundreds of current and prospective students, faculty, staff, alumni, parents and others were invited to share what they expected from a new UW homepage and what information and experiences mattered most to them. Opportunities to participate were shared through channels including the Husky Pawket Guide — a student-focused email newsletter — and UW Insider — an internal newsletter for faculty and staff — as well as public UW social media platforms, including LinkedIn and Instagram. Using both internal and public-facing channels helped gather perspectives from people currently closely connected to the UW as well as prospective students, parents, alumni and others outside the University.

This research revealed clear patterns in how people use the homepage. Search overwhelmingly dominated user activity, while resources such as MyUW, admissions and academic information were among the most frequent destinations. Survey feedback also showed that people wanted the homepage to highlight University news and achievements, student stories, research and innovation, and important information about financial aid and affordability.

Accessibility was a core consideration from the beginning of the project. UW accessibility standards and the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), an international standard for making web content more accessible to people with disabilities, informed decisions about video controls, navigation, headings, image descriptions, links and other interactive elements.

As the design developed, early previews were shared with, and input invited from, a broad cross section of the University community, including the president’s council and provost’s council; the Board of Regents; the Faculty Senate Executive Committee; student government leaders from our Bothell, Seattle and Tacoma campuses; and partners representing admissions, alumni engagement, philanthropy, research, UW Medicine, UW Athletics, UW Bothell, UW Tacoma and other areas. Those conversations helped surface different needs, test assumptions and refine the direction before launch.

From a static page to a flexible system

New, adaptable spaces also allow the University to respond to the rhythm of the year — from admissions and commencement to cherry blossom season — and to highlight major research discoveries, significant University announcements or even an unexpected moment of Husky pride.

The result is a homepage that provides more flexibility to update content without redesigning the page itself.

One of the most visible changes is the new hero section at the top of the homepage. The hero section uses short-form video to create a stronger sense of UW identity and place, giving visitors an immediate visual sense of the University and the people, settings and experiences that make the UW distinctive.

As the design developed and moved into production, early partners were brought back into the process to review the evolving direction, respond to previews and help refine how the homepage could support different needs across the University. That input further informed both the design and the approach to keeping individual homepage components updated after launch.

“This was an opportunity to rethink one of the University’s most visible spaces,” said Jack Martin, vice president for marketing and communications. “The goal is to create something that feels unmistakably UW, while giving us more flexibility to respond to major moments, elevate important priorities and better reflect the breadth of the University.”

Building for what comes next

Launching the page isn’t intended to be the end of the redesign.

The new homepage was built to support ongoing testing and refinement, giving the team more ways to understand what people use, what they engage with and where the experience can improve.

Future possibilities include A/B testing and more personalized experiences tailored to audience needs.

The redesign, then, is not only about what the homepage looks like in September 2026. It creates a framework the UW can continue to shape over time, based on how people actually use it. The redesign is an expression of our commitment to making the UW’s web presence a truly useful resource for our many audiences and the state of Washington.

Share your feedback

The new homepage will continue to be evaluated and refined after launch. Visitors are invited to share feedback about their experience with the redesigned site through .

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The University engaged an outside entity, the firm ,��to support the review because��of��its��extensive experience working with colleges and universities around the country, including reviewing student conduct codes.

Over the last nine months, University leaders, staff and Husch Blackwell have engaged and consulted with faculty, staff and students. Their feedback, along with national peer best practices and the UW’s legal requirements under state and federal laws, was used to develop the proposed changes to the Code that were to be considered by the Board of Regents at their September meeting.

“I believe this additional period of review and consultation will help us move forward with a Code that reflects both our legal obligations and our shared commitment to fairness, transparency, accountability, and the educational mission of the University,” President Jones wrote.

President Jones asked the Faculty Senate to provide its feedback no later than Dec. 10, 2026, the date of the final Senate meeting of the autumn quarter. Additional staff and student perspectives will also be incorporated during this time, including seeking further input from student governments on the UW’s three campuses.

This feedback, along with feedback already provided during the public comment period, will be used to shape revisions to the Student Conduct Code and related changes to the General Conduct Code that will eventually be presented to the Regents.

Based on��the stakeholder engagement process and the feedback received during that process, the proposed revisions make many improvements to the��Code, including:

• Bringing the code into compliance with current Title IX regulations governing sexual assault and misconduct, and aligning its terminology with the��, which prohibits discrimination, harassment and sexual misconduct
• Adding amnesty language for students who admit to unlawful possession or use of alcohol or drugs when seeking medical assistance for another student
• Adding doxxing as��prohibited conduct
• Updating the appeals process to��enable��the��opportunity for��inclusion of��specialized expertise in non-academic misconduct cases, particularly on sexual assault and misconduct matters,��since��there have been cases where the need for more expertise on the difficult subject of sexual assault and consent created delays that did not serve students well
• Establishing that��if��an individual has been found responsible for prohibited conduct, concealing one’s identity for the purpose of evading or escaping discovery, recognition, or identification while engaged in��that��prohibited conduct may be considered in determining sanctions;��students are already required to show identification to a��University official when requested,��so��the proposal adds transparency to existing sanctioning criteria
• Clarifying that alleged conduct violations by Registered Student Organizations are adjudicated through the existing brief adjudication��process and not a full hearing process
• Updating several definitions for clarity and/or to align current practices and legal standards, including definitions for academic misconduct; creating a nuisance in neighboring communities; hazing;��abuse of others and threats; disruption, hindering, impeding, or obstruction; failure to comply; and unauthorized access, presence, or use of property

On this final item, it is important to recognize that the definitions around violations such as disruption, failure to comply and unauthorized access apply only to actions that qualify as misconduct. The Student Conduct Code does not prohibit speech or other expressive activities that are protected by the First Amendment, and these definitions will be applied consistently regardless of what views – if any – were being expressed when the misconduct took place.

In addition to these changes that deal with non-academic misconduct, during the coming academic year the University’s faculty is expected to undertake a review of the academic elements of the Student Conduct Code with the University’s administration, which is a particularly timely topic in light of advances in artificial intelligence and other technologies.

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The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), an independent research organization at the ������˾��, has received a landmark 10-year grant from the Gates Foundation to strengthen freely available, scientifically rigorous health evidence used by governments, researchers, and leaders to improve the health and well-being of people in Washington, the United States, and around the world.

IHME is part of the UW School of Medicine, and the $540.2 million investment will provide long-term support for expanding the Global Burden of Disease study to provide health data for thousands of new areas. GBD is the most comprehensive assessment of health trends and conditions across countries. Under the grant, GBD will expand from roughly 925 locations today to nearly 5,000 — a major expansion in the geographic detail available to the people making decisions. The grant will also support IHME’s health forecasting and future-scenarios work, and its tracking of health spending worldwide.

Together, these resources help decision-makers, researchers, and health professionals understand the health challenges people face today, anticipate what is coming next, and determine how limited resources can be used most effectively to improve health.

“Reliable and independent evidence can mean the difference between reacting to a health crisis after it has taken hold and acting early enough to change its course,” said Dr. Christopher J.L. Murray, IHME director and professor of health metrics sciences. “This investment will allow us to provide high-quality evidence at a much more local level and help leaders understand not only where health is improving or worsening, but which decisions can make the greatest difference for people.”

Murray, the grant’s principal investigator, started the Global Burden of Disease study in the early 1990s and has led its development since, in collaboration with a global research network now spanning more than 150 countries and territories.

The Gates Foundation, along with the state of Washington, provided the founding investment that established IHME at the ������˾�� in 2007, creating an independent institute dedicated to measuring the world’s most pressing health challenges and evaluating whether policies and programs are improving people’s lives. Its sustained support has helped build the field of health metrics itself. IHME has developed many of the methods and standards the field now relies on and has helped collaborators contribute to the field as well. The new grant builds on that longstanding partnership and provides a base for IHME’s next phase of growth.

“Every government and funder faces difficult decisions about where to invest limited resources for greatest impact, and those decisions depend on trusted evidence,” said Mark Suzman, Chief Executive Officer of the Gates Foundation. “For nearly two decades, IHME has been one of the foundation’s most important global partners, helping us, governments, researchers, and global health partners around the world understand where health is improving, where progress is stalling, and where action is needed most. Our long-term commitment recognizes the value of this work to strengthen a shared evidence base that will continue to inform decisions to improve—and save—millions of lives.”

The Global Burden of Disease network has grown to more than 20,000 collaborators in over 150 countries and territories: researchers, clinicians, government analysts, and policymakers who contribute to the study’s data and methods and carry health measurement into their own institutions and ministries. This next phase of IHME’s work is an opportunity to consolidate that foundation and extend it considerably further.

The grant comes as countries confront overlapping health threats and growing pressure on public and global health budgets. By producing more detailed, timely, and forward-looking evidence, IHME aims to help leaders identify urgent needs, prepare health systems, and invest in policies and programs most likely to prevent illness, disability, and premature death.

The award is the largest charitable grant ever given to the ������˾��.

“The Gates Foundation has been a steadfast partner of the ������˾�� for decades, and we are grateful for its generous support. The UW is committed to improving the health of people in Washington and around the world, and this investment will expand IHME’s already significant impact, which will mean longer, healthier lives for countless people,” said UW President Robert J. Jones.

IHME’s research and findings are freely available to countries, researchers, and communities regardless of their income or access to commercial data systems.

“We are deeply grateful to the Gates Foundation for this extraordinary investment in IHME and the ������˾�� School of Medicine,” said Dr. Timothy Dellit, CEO of UW Medicine and dean of the ������˾�� School of Medicine. “Their longstanding partnership has helped make it possible for IHME to deliver trusted health evidence around the world. This new grant will extend that impact by giving leaders data that are comprehensive and comparable to guide decisions that help improve the health of communities and save lives.”

Read . For interview requests, data inquiries or general questions, please contact IHME at ihmemedia@uw.edu.

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Going forward, procedures will be updated to ensure the standards we have for University-hosted events like the Speaker Series are met, particularly so that we can help elevate the level of dialogue on divisive topics during a polarized time in our country.

Update – August 19, 2026

In the process of reviewing the 2026-27 Speaker Series, it was determined that a total of seven of the 16 announced events did not go through the committee-based process for selecting featured speakers. These events will also not be held.

Procedures will be updated to ensure there are clear standards, transparent criteria and robust processes for selecting future Speaker Series participants in a manner consistent with the UW’s mission as a public research university.

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A new study using data from NASA’s found that star formation in the nearby Andromeda galaxy has undergone a 500-million-year decline, with an even steeper drop in the last 40 million years. Andromeda, a spiral galaxy comparable in size to our Milky Way, is close enough to be seen with the unaided eye from areas with dark skies. Located about 2.5 million light-years from Earth, practically our cosmic backyard, Andromeda is close enough for astronomers to examine its stellar populations in detail and learn about the past of galaxies like our own.

July 27 in .

To reach this conclusion, the researchers combined data from two Hubble surveys: the and the . Together, these two surveys mapped two-thirds of the disk of Andromeda in ultra-sharp detail. In total, the team measured about 200 million individual stars across the galaxy, giving them a detailed picture of Andromeda’s past activity.

“We need to measure the individual stars because they are the fossil record of the galaxy’s formation,” said , a research professor of astronomy at the ������˾�� and a co-author on the study. “Hubble is the only telescope that can give you high enough spatial resolution in the blue part of the spectrum over a large enough area to be able to do that in Andromeda.”

Massive stars are bluer and short-lived, while less massive stars are redder and longer-lived. As a result, areas that have experienced recent star formation tend to have a larger fraction of blue stars, while areas with less recent star formation typically have a redder population. The team divided the Andromeda images into thousands of squares, spanning 300 light-years on each side, and determined the history of star formation within each parcel to gain a comprehensive view of the galaxy’s past.

Previous research showed the Andromeda galaxy experienced a dramatic burst of star formation about 2 billion years ago, likely due to a past interaction or merger with another galaxy. Since that time, star formation has been steadily declining.

This movie, created from an analysis of data from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, demonstrates how the rate of star formation in the Andromeda galaxy has declined over the past 500 million years. Brighter colors indicate where star formation was highest during a given time. Credit: Visualization: Tobin Wainer (UW); Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI); Video: NASA, ESA, STScI, Gregory Bacon (STScI)

Astronomers measure the rate of star formation in terms of the mass, or amount of gas and dust, converted into stars per year. The researchers calculated that, 500 million years ago, Andromeda formed stars at a rate of about one solar mass per year. However, the formation rate dropped to about half that by 40 million years ago. The current rate has plummeted even farther, to about one-fifth the mass of our Sun per year.

The team also examined whether that decline was consistent across the galaxy or concentrated in certain areas. They found that much of the recent star formation has occurred in a star-forming ring located about 32,000 light-years from the galaxy’s center. As a result, much of the decline they measure is driven by decreasing activity within that ring.

The decline is likely to be a natural winding down from its previous, more active state.

“It’s just like after running a marathon, sometimes you’ve got to take a bit of a breather,” said lead author , a UW graduate student in astronomy.��

The team also investigated whether there was any connection between the decrease of activity in Andromeda and its proximity to the satellite galaxy Messier 32, or M32. The M32 galaxy is separated from Andromeda by about 16,000 light-years in the plane of the sky; however, its 3D location in space is uncertain. As a result, astronomers are unsure if or when it might have interacted with Andromeda in the past.

“One of the major motivations for this program was to probe potential interactions between M32 and Andromeda’s disk,” said co-author , a UW postdoctoral scholar in astronomy.

Survey data from the Panchromatic Hubble Andromeda Southern Treasury allowed the team to study the history of star formation in Andromeda near M32. They found that this area showed signs of decreased star formation compared with other regions. The timing of this decrease, which this study finds began roughly 60 million years ago, could help constrain when the M32 galaxy interacted with Andromeda’s disk.

“We can’t explicitly say that we are seeing a decrease in star formation because of M32. But it’s right there, and it’s definitely the most likely suspect,” Wainer said.

The team plans to continue analyzing the Hubble data and combine it with data from ground-based observatories to gain additional insights into the history of Andromeda.

“There’s a strong scientific value to this archival data,” said co-author , a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at University of California Santa Cruz. “Andromeda is important because it’s a neighbor that is close enough that we can see it in great detail while also getting a global perspective.”��

An even greater global perspective is likely to come from NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope after it launches as early as Sunday, Aug. 30. Roman’s gigantic field of view can cover at least 100 times as much area as Hubble at near-infrared wavelengths in a single observation. A newly approved will image the entirety of Andromeda’s disk and areas of its surrounding halo, allowing astronomers to measure hundreds of millions of stars and enabling groundbreaking new science.

Hubble is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency.��

UW co-authors include , professor emerita of astronomy and , and , former UW graduate students in astronomy.

A complete list of co-authors is .

This research was funded by NASA.

For more information, contact Wainer at tobinw@uw.edu.

This story was adapted from a press release by .

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Researchers at the ������˾�� and partners at Carnegie Mellon University are collaborating with the U.S. Department of Energy’s on a new project to help scientists use artificial intelligence to better understand the universe.

Modern astronomy is producing more data than ever before. Powerful telescopes — like the — and other instruments around the world are collecting detailed information about billions of stars, galaxies and other cosmic objects. These observations help researchers investigate some of the biggest mysteries in science, including the nature of dark matter and dark energy, how the universe evolved over time and what it is made of.

But there is a challenge: Much of the data from those projects is stored in different formats, housed at different institutions and difficult to combine. As a result, scientists often spend significant time preparing data before they can begin analyzing it.

“The scientific opportunities and the data analysis challenges are incredible,” said , head of physics at Carnegie Mellon University.

The new effort, led by Mandelbaum and funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s , will create a shared data service to allow researchers to seamlessly access and combine information from multiple astronomy experiments. Rather than moving massive datasets from one location to another, the system will allow the data to remain where it is stored while making it available through a central platform.

“A new generation of telescopes and surveys will each change the way we understand our universe,” said co-investigator , a UW professor of astronomy and director of the eScience Institute. “But it is when we bring these data together to look at the universe from a unified perspective that these discoveries will be truly transformative.”

The data infrastructure developed as part of this project will be available to the astronomical community at the SLAC-hosted Rubin Observatory’s U.S. Data Facility and via the American Science Cloud, which integrates the nation’s most advanced high-performance computing systems, scientific facilities, data resources and production capabilities into a single, coordinated AI-driven system. The project extends the UW’s investments in Rubin Observatory and the UW , which are supported by Charles and Lisa Simonyi and led by and .��

The infrastructure also will support a growing area of AI known as foundation models. These AI systems are trained on large and diverse datasets, enabling them to recognize patterns and connections that might otherwise go unnoticed.

In astronomy, foundation models could help researchers analyze many different types of observations at once, including images, measurements of light from distant objects and records of how those objects change over time. By bringing these data sources together, scientists hope to uncover new insights about the universe more quickly and efficiently.

Ultimately, the team hopes to transform the vast collections of astronomical data being gathered today into a long-lasting scientific resource, helping researchers answer some of humanity’s most fundamental questions about the origin, evolution and makeup of the universe.

Other UW co-investigators include , a research scientist and engineer in astronomy. Other co-investigators include , director of engineering for the LINCC project and , senior staff scientist at SLAC and at Stanford’s/SLAC’s Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology.

Additional modeling will be provided by Francois Lanusse of the French National Centre for Scientific Research. Their work is an extension of the Schmidt Sciences-supported LINCC Frameworks program, a partnership led jointly by CMU and the UW.

This story was adapted from a press release by .

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