Our principal business at Lowell Observatory is research. From our offices on Mars Hill to our telescope sites at Anderson Mesa and Happy Jack, we advance humankind's understanding of the cosmos.
The smallest, faintest galaxies are the building blocks of larger galaxies like the Milky Way, being frequently torn apart or devoured by their giant parents. Lowell astronomer Deidre Hunter and collaborators are conducting a major survey of star formation processes in nearby dwarf irregular galaxies to understand how and where their stars form. This will provide a more complete picture of the structure and evolution of these little galaxies: how does the density of gas in these galaxies drop as one goes out from their centers, and how can stars form in regions of very low gas density? The LITTLE THINGS survey will address these important areas where observations do not agree with theoretical expectations. This research is supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, and makes extensive use of the Very Large Array (VLA) in Socorro, NM, a division of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory.
Research programs & information for students
For more on the research feature at left, see Deidre Hunter's LITTLE THINGS site.
For a complete summary of the research ongoing at Lowell, see our research program overview page.
Graduate students can come to Lowell to do their dissertation research through our predoctoral program.
Details about some of our projects