...where the Universe is our laboratory.
The Waterloo Centre for Astrophysics (WCA) looks to the cosmos to solve the greatest mysteries of the universe. Here, world-class researchers and students come together in an atmosphere of curiosity, creativity and collaboration; exploring our cosmic origin to truly understand the physical processes at work in the Universe. From black holes to cosmology, we aim to understand what lies beyond the Earth. The possibilities for new discovery are limitless.
News
What to spot in the sky this year
There's lots to see in the night sky this year, so we've taken a look at all the events you don't want to miss in 2025!
Prize winning paper!
Chloe Cheng was one of the two winners of the 2023-2024 WCA Student Paper Prize. Here, she summarizes her prize-winning paper for us.
One year later: tracking the evolution of a black hole
After sharing the world’s first images of a black hole with the world in 2019, the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) team recently released a follow-up to the 2024 paper reporting on the results from the 2018 observations of M87* entitled “The persistent shadow of the supermassive black hole of M87”.
Events
Astroseminar - Guadalupe Canas Herrera
“Diving into the era of Large-Scale Structure data: going beyond the Standard Cosmological Model”
Guadalupe is a Theoretical Cosmologist investigating the Universe's origins, evolution, and ultimate fate by studying alternative cosmological models with cutting-edge astrophysical data and advanced statistical techniques, while also forecasting the potential of new experiments and observables, such as Gravitational Waves.
Astroseminar - Erik Osinga
"Galaxy clusters as the Universe’s largest particle accelerators"
Dr. Erik Osinga is a postdoctoral fellow at the Dunlap Institute. He completed his PhD at Leiden University in 2023. Erik's work centres on understanding how magnetic fields and particle acceleration shape the environments within and around galaxy clusters.
Astroseminar - Nathan Carlson
Nathan J. Carlson is a PhD candidate at the University of Toronto and the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics (CITA). Nathan’s work in theoretical cosmology focusses on linking early universe physics to large-scale structure of the universe as we see it today.