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Rensselaer offers more than 145 programs at the bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral levels. Students are encouraged to work in interdisciplinary programs that allow them to combine scholarly work from several departments or schools. The university provides rigorous, engaging, interactive learning environments and campus-wide opportunities for leadership, collaboration, and creativity.

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Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics

Gruber Prize in Cosmology

Division H Interstellar Matter and Local Universe : Member

An Orbit Fit to Likely Hermus Stream Stars

Rings and Radial Waves in the Disk of the Milky Way

The Seventh Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

This volume is written by leading scientists in the field, who review the current state of our knowledge of tidal streams in the Milky Way, the Andromeda galaxy, and in other nearby galaxies. The cosmological origins of dwarf galaxies and the physical processes by which they are tidally disrupted into streams and incorporated into galaxy halos are discussed. The techniques that have been used to identify tidal streams are presented and will be useful to researchers who would like to find substructures in the next generation of optical sky surveys, including Pan-STARRS and LSST. The methods that are currently under development to constrain both large scale distribution of dark matter in the Milky Way and the (small scale) lumpiness of the dark matter distribution are also explained. The authors also provide motivation for future spectroscopic surveys of Milky Way halo stars, which will aid both in the identification of tidal streams and the constraint of dark matter properties. This volume is aimed at graduate students who are beginning this field of research, but is also a resource for researchers who study tidal streams and related fields. In addition to presenting the physical processes by which tidal streams are created, it also reviews the current state of the observations and the progress towards utilizing these observations to constrain the distribution of dark matter in the Milky Way. The book will introduce anyone with a background in astrophysics to the field of tidal streams.

Tidal Streams in the Local Group and Beyond: Observations and Implications (Astrophysics and Space Science Library)

Professor Newberg is a participant in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, which will image 10,000 square degrees of the north galactic cap in five optical filters over the next five years. Additionally, the surey will obtain a million spectra of the galaxies (and hundreds of thousands of QSOs and stars) detected in the imaging survey. Newberg's current research is primarily related to understanding the structure of our own galaxy through using A stars as tracers of the galactic halo, and using photometrically determined metallicities of main sequence F-K stars to determine whether the thick disk is chemically distinct from the thin disk and galactic halo of our galaxy. She hopes that these studies will contribute to our understanding of how the Galaxy formed. Newberg has worked in many areas of astronomy over the course of my career. She did her PhD with the Berkeley Automated Supernova Search, which measured the supernova rates as a function of supernova type in Virgo-distance galaxies; and the Supernova Cosmology Project, which is measuring the cosmological parameters Omega and Lambda using the light curves of distant supernovae. She has published papers in diverse areas of galactic and extragalactic astronomy, including: supernova phenomenology, measuring cosmological parameters from supernovae, galaxy photometry, color selection of QSOs, properties of stars, and the structure of our galaxy.

Physics

Color Selection of QSOs

Supernova Phenomenology

Astronomy

Galaxy Photometry

Properties of Stars

Physics and Astronomy 

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Nuclear fission to DNA: Women's contribution to science that the world will not forget

New 3D map of the Milky Way shows we live in a warped galaxy

Dudley Observatory joining forces with miSci

Professor, Physics, Applied Physics, and Astronomy

Please help fund Prof. Heidi Jo Newberg's research on the Milky Way galaxy.  There is a donation link on her home page at: http://homepages.rpi.edu/~newbeh/.

Help Fund Milky Way Research

Prof. Heidi Jo Newberg, with the help of Amy and David Newberg,  explains why it is hotter in the summer and colder in the winter. Directed by Ellie Newberg. Lighting by Maggie Newberg.

Why Is It Hotter in the Summer?

Rensselaer Celebrates Legacy of Space Exploration

Heidi Jo Newberg, Professor of Applied Physics and Astrology, on Galactic Astronomy

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