(Professors Bernatowicz, Hohenberg, and Zinner) is unique in the range of analytical techniques that are brought to bear on the study of extraterrestrial materials and in the breadth of scientific problems that are being addressed. The group applies state-of-the-art isotopic, chemical and physical microanalysis to ancient stardust from meteorites that was produced in the mass outflows from supernovae and red giant stars, to meteorites themselves, to interplanetary dust from comets and asteroids that is collected in the stratosphere, and to lunar samples.

Professor Cowsik's research interest include astro-particle physics, mainly galactic dynamics of dark matter and its detection, especially at the interface of particle physics and cosmology, astrophysics of cosmic- ray, radio, x-ray, gamma-ray and neutrino sources like accreting neutron stars and black holes, supernova remnants, galaxies, active galactic nuclei and gamma ray bursts.

Professors in this group are Binns, Buckley, Israel and Krawczynski. Faculty and students in this group design and build instruments that are flown on spacecraft and high-altitude balloons or are used at ground-based observatories to detect cosmic-rays, gamma rays, X-rays and neutrinos. Students gain experience designing, building, and working with state-of-the-art electronic detector systems and using computer systems for controlling instrumentation and for analyzing large quantities of data.

Gamma-ray astronomy gives direct information about the most energetic objects in the universe. Professor Buckley--in collaboration with scientists from Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and other institutions in the U.S., U.K., and Ireland--observes the gamma-ray sky above a few x 10¹¹ eV with the 10-meter atmospheric Cherenkov detector on Mount Hopkins in Arizona. With this instrument they are studying, among other things, Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN), rapidly varying sources of energetic gamma rays from relativistic jets of energetic particles emitted by the massive black holes at the centers of distant galaxies.

Professor Krawczynski analyzes and interprets data from space-borne X-ray and Gamma-ray telescopes to explore the astrophysics of mass-accreting supermassive black holes which lure in the centers of galaxies. Furthermore, he develops solid state detectors for the next-generation of space-borne X-ray and Gamma-ray telescopes. The development aims at optimizing the detector's spatial and spectroscopic resolution. In collaboration with scientists from Harvard, he works on the concept of the large field of view X-ray satellite EXIST.