IF YOU ARE LOOKING AT THIS WEBPAGE BECAUSE YOU WANT TO CONTACT ME REGARDING FALLACIOUS NEWS REPORTS ABOUT THE SUN BEING FROM THE SAGITTARIUS DWARF GALAXY:
  1. DO NOT BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU READ ON THE INTERNET! WE HAVE NEVER MADE THE CLAIM THAT THE SOLAR SYSTEM IS FROM THE SAGITTARIUS GALAXY, AND REPORTS TO THE CONTRARY ARE A GROSS DISTORTION OF OUR RESEARCH!

  2. IF YOU ARE A JOURNALIST, PLEASE FOLLOW TRADITIONAL JOURNALISTIC STANDARDS AND DO PROPER SOURCE AND FACT CHECKING! (IF OTHER SUPPOSEDLY RELIABLE NEWS AGENCIES HAD SUBSCRIBED TO THESE BASIC PRINCIPLES, YOU PROBABLY WOULD NOT BE WASTING TIME RIGHT NOW CHASING DOWN THIS ILLEGITIMATE NEWS STORY!)

  3. THE WEBSITE http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2007/06/27/is-the-sun-from-another-galaxy , WRITTEN BY A Ph.D. ASTRONOMER, DOES A REASONABLE JOB OF ADDRESSING THE MISINFORMATION BEING CIRCULATED AROUND THE WORLD IN THIS "NEWS STORY" HOAX.

  4. If after reading the above referenced wesbite you still wish to ask questions either about the ACTUAL science involved in our research, or my opinions about how shoddy reporting (at least reporting of science) has become in the mainstream press, please feel free to send me an email.

    PS: It is ironic that journalists, who constantly rail against blogs as illegitimate sources of news, elected here to rely on a blog from someone with no scientific credentials (but a lot of imagination) as the sole source for breaking fanciful, but completely incorrect stories on something purporting to be as important as "one of the most pivotal discoveries of our time"....

Steven R. Majewski, Professor


Research interests:


Positions held:


Courses taught:

Currently:
Astronomy 313: Observational Astronomy

Recently:
Astronomy 551: Galactic Structure and Stellar Populations
Astronomy 511: Astronomical Techniques
Astronomy 130: Night Sky Laboratory

Research Group

Steven R. Majewski (Professor)
Richard J. Patterson (Research Faculty)
William E. Kunkel (Adjunct Faculty)
Jeff Carlin (Ph.D. student)
Mei-Yin Chou (Ph.D. student)
Joleen Miller (Ph.D. student)
Ricardo Munoz (Ph.D. student)
David Nidever (Ph.D. student)
Rachael Beaton (Ph.D. student)
Gail Zasowski (Ph.D. student)
Christine Drown (B.S. student)
Nicole Fields (B.S. student)
Andrew Cheung (Data Analyst)

Year 2001 Research Group Year 2005 Research Group

Year 2007 Research Group

Former Students and Group Members

  • Allyson (Polak) Sheffield (2006 Ph.D., now Visiting Faculty, Vassar College)
    Ph.D. Thesis: Exploring Galactic Structure with Late Type Stars
  • Peter Frinchaboy III (2006 Ph.D., now an NSF Fellow at University of Wisconsin)
    Ph.D. Thesis: Exploring Halo Disk Tracers
  • Jeffrey Crane (2004 Ph.D., now a postdoc at Carnegie Observatories)
    Ph.D. Thesis: Exploring Galactic Structure with the Fan Observatory Bench Optical Spectrograph (2004, PASP, 117, 526)
  • Sangmo (Tony) Sohn (2003 Ph.D., became a postdoc at Korea Astronomical Observatory, now at Caltech)
    Ph.D. Thesis: Multi-Color Studies of Old Stellar Populations
    Masters Thesis (2002): Mapping the Structure of the Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy Leo I (2007, ApJ,663, 960)
  • Chris Palma (2001 Ph.D., now Associate Director of Outreach for the Eberly College of Science, Senior Lecturer in Astronomy & Astrophysics, Penn State)
    Ph.D. Thesis: Evidence for Tidal Disruption Induced Substructure in the Outer Halo of the Milky Way Galaxy (2003, AJ, 125, 1352; 2002, ApJ, 564, 736; 2001, PASP, 112, 1305)
    Masters Thesis: The Optical Counterpart and Megaparsec Environment of the Giant FR II Radio Galaxy NVSS 2146+82 (2000, AJ, 119, 2068)
  • Michael Siegel (2001 Ph.D., first postdoc at Space Telescope Science Institute, presently postdoc at Texas)
    Ph.D. Thesis: Insights into the Formation of the Milky Way Galaxy (2002, ApJ, 578, 151; 2002, ApJ, 569, 432; 2001, AJ, 121, 935; 2000, AJ, 120, 284)
    Masters Thesis: Starcounts Redivivus: A Possible Detection of the Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy at b=-40 degrees (1999, AJ, 117, 10)
  • James Ostheimer (2002 Ph.D., now Senior Software Engineer at Information Extraction Export)
    Ph.D. Thesis: Exploring the Halo of M31

  • Sabrina Pakzad (2005 M.S., presently at NOAO)
    Project: Radial Velocities of Outer Halo M Giants
  • Matthew Garvin (2003 M.S., presently in the U.S. Air Force)
    Project: A Masked Cross-Correlation Code for Radial Velocities
  • Alison Schirmer (1999 M.S., whereabouts unkown)
    Masters Thesis: The Development of Astrometric Measuring Engines
  • Allyson Polak: (2002 M.S., still at UVa)
    Masters Thesis: Exploring Galactic Structure with the Giant Grid Star Survey
  • Peter Frinchaboy (2002 M.S., still at UVa)
    Masters Thesis: The Metallicity Distribution Function of Omega Centauri

  • Rachael Beaton (2007 B.S., now in grad school at Virginia)
    Senior Thesis: Unveiling the Bar and Bulge of the Andromeda Galaxy
  • David Law (2003 B.S., now in grad school at Caltech)
    Senior Thesis: Modeling the Tidal Tails of the Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy
  • Christina Hampton (2003 B.S., now data analyst in Majewski group)
    Senior Thesis: HST Imaging and Stellar Populations in the Peculiar Galaxy 52W036
  • Hina Ayub (2002 B.S., M.S. from UC-Irvine, now working for FBI)
    Senior Thesis: A 2MASS Search for Tidal Tails in the Globular Cluster Omega Centauri
  • Jennifer Alltop (2001 B.S., 2003 M.S. from MIT, now in Ph.D. program in Earth and Environmental Science at Columbia)
    Senior Thesis: The Structure of the Andromeda II Dwarf Galaxy
  • Amy Forestell (2001 B.S., now in grad school at Texas)
    Senior Thesis: Searching for Extratidal Stars Around the Globular Cluster NGC 288
  • Brian Keeney (2001 B.S., now in grad school at Colorado)
    Senior Thesis: The Proper Motion of the Fornax Dwarf Spheroidal
  • Veronica Ponce (2001 B.S., now employed at NASA)
    Senior Thesis: The Pyxis Globular Cluster
  • Elena Sergueeva Adams (2001 B.S., now in grad school at MIT)
    Senior Thesis: Construction of a Multifiber Spectrograph for the Fan Mountain Observatory
  • Kyle Brian Westfall (2001, B.S., now in grad school at Wisconsin)
    Senior Thesis: The Extended Structure of the Sculptor Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy
  • Steven Crawford (2000 B.S., now in grad school at Wisconsin)
    Senior Thesis: Deep Multicolor Galaxy Studies to B ~ 26
  • Winfrey Y. Johnson (1999 B.S., now software engineer for Supply Chain Logic, Inc.)
    Senior Thesis: The Metallicity Distribution of Omega Centauri
  • James Ostheimer (1998 B.S., Senior Software Engineer at Information Extraction Export)
    Senior Thesis: A Search for Tidal Stellar Debris from the Magellanic Clouds
  • Janet Wescott (1999 B.A. )
    Joint History and Astronomy Senior Thesis: The History of the McCormick Observatory

  • Helio Rocha-Pinto (postdoc 2002-2004, now faculty at National Observatory Brazil)
  • Jaehyon Rhee (postdoc 2000-2003, now at Caltech)
  • Dana Dinescu (postdoc 1998-2001, now at Yale)
  • Arunav Kundu (postdoc 1999-2000, now at MSU)
  • Richard Patterson (postdoc 1997-2000, now research faculty at Virginia)

  • Megan Kohring (data analyst, Web Expert; now staff, Spitzer Science Center)
  • Anthony Bernacchi (M.S. student, 2001)
  • Catherine Slesnick (data analyst 2000-2001, now in grad school at Caltech)
  • Cameron Hummels (data analyst, 2001-2002; obtained M.S. at Wesleyan, now in grad school at Columbia)
  • Christina Hampton (data analyst, 2003-2005)


    Research Highlights:

    An (outdated) list of papers and preprints.

    Click here for the NASA ADS listing of my publications.


    Click here for the press release on the discovery of extended tidal tails of the Sagittarius galaxy as a result of its cannibalization by the Milkky Way.
    Dwarf Spheroidals being accreted by the Galaxy; Artwork by Russell Kightley
    • The Grid Giant Star Survey for the Space Interferometry Mission (SIM): Majewski and collaborators have been funded by NASA to provide the Grid Giant Star Survey (GGSS), a patchwork all--sky survey below Declination = +20 degrees intended to fill the need of SIM for a grid of astrometrically stable reference stars with magnitudes V < 13. Our ground-based survey identifies old, distant, intermediate to metal-poor giant stars with the Swope 1-m telescope at the Las Campanas Observatory. Metal poor giant stars, by virtue of their luminosity, probe the Galaxy to greater distances than almost any other stellar type at the same apparent magnitude; thus, any problems associated with astrometric jitter due to multiplicity, planetary systems, starspotting, etc. are correspondingly reduced by the larger distances of metal poor giants. Distant (>5 kpc) giants are also highly desirable for understanding and mapping the structure and kinematics of the Milky Way. GGSS Completed fields, equatorial projection (10 March 1999)


    Max Mansell (Australian aboriginal artist): This painting is about a serpent which passes through the Milky Way and lays eggs. Some eggs become campsites, some become waterholes and some grow into bush fruits and food for the Spirit people. The snake leaves a track so that everyone can find nourishment.

      Last modified May 9, 2008 at 14:48:29 EDT by srm4n
      http://www.astro.virginia.edu/~srm4n/index.html