The Extragalactic Astronomy and Cosmology Group is based in the Department of Physics at Durham University. We are ranked Number One in Europe and fourth in the world for our research into Space Science (which covers research into astronomy and astrophysics) over the last decade, according to a new league table by Thomson Reuters ESI and published in the Times.

Conference: What Drives the Growth of Black Holes Durham, 19-22 April 2010

We are one of the largest extragalactic astronomy groups in Europe, encompassing both observational and theoretical aspects of the formation and evolution of galaxies, clusters and large scale structure. The group makes extensive use of the world's forefront observational facilities to test advanced theoretical models of galaxy and structure formation developed in Durham. The group interacts closely with staff in the Astronomy Instrumentation group to aid the development and commissioning of instrumentation purpose-built for studies relevant to this area.

Our observational research programmes utilise the largest ground-based optical and near-infrared telescopes including those in Hawaii, Australia, Chile and the Canary Islands, and we have been particularly successful at obtaining time on the Hubble Space Telescope. The multi-wavelength aspects of our programme focus on sub-millimeter and radio observations from ground-based facilities in Hawaii, Spain, Australia and the Americas and X-ray observations from space-based facilities such as the Chandra and Newton X-ray satellites.

Our theoretical research programme is centred around the Institute for Computational Cosmology (ICC). There you will find details of our studies into galaxy formation, large-scale structure and the nature of the cosmic dark matter.