Public outreach

Radio & podcast

• Space boiled down — how to commmunicate astronomy (Thorkild Jacobsen/P2)
• Black holes — a dark tale of gravity and more… (Tino Tønnesen/IDA Space Talks)
• The Euclid space telescope has been launched, and is on its way to join James Webb (Nicolai Dupont/Radio4; at 00:33:45)
• The Big Bang; what happened, and was it really the beginning of time? (Tino Tønnesen/IDA Space Talks)
• How does a mirror know what's behind the paper? (Martin Plauborg/P3; at 59:30)
• The formation, evolution, diversity, and history of galaxies (Tino Tønnesen/IDA Space Talks)
• Are we living in a simulation? (Christian Fuhlendorff, Masoud Vahedi & Christian Frederiksen/Op af Kaninhullet; at 49:25)
• Winter solstice topic on darkness (Tony Scott & Amalie Bremer/Radio4; at 01:20:00)
• Record distant galaxy confirmed with James Webb (Nicolai Dupont/Radio4; at 00:19:35)
• Distance record-breaking galaxies with James Webb? (Nicolai Dupont/Radio4; at 01:15:03)
• Magical images from space (Johan Olsen & Vicky Knudsen/P1)
• The hunt for the beginning of the Universe (about James Webb's first galaxies) (Kaare Svejstrup/Pilestræde @ Berlingske)
• James Webb's first images (Nicolai Dupont/Radio4; at 01:00:53)
• How do you discover galaxies? And how do you follow their evolution over millions of years?(Nicolai Dupont/Radio4; at 00:06:10)
• James Webbs instrumenter er endelig klar, og de første videnskabelige observationer er taget (Nicolai Dupont/Radio4; at 01:01:55)
• James Webb has reached its target temperature, and all its mirrors are in place (Nicolai Dupont/Radio4; at 01:00:30)
• The "missing link" between galaxies and quasars (Thomas Schumann/Den Nye Rumalder; at 38:45)
• Astronomers found a bunch of "rogue" planets without stars (Camilla Boraghi & Mads Bjerregaard/Den Uafhængige; at 1:01:10)
• James Webb had its first light (Nicolai Dupont/Radio4)
• James Webb is home! (Kasper Harboe/Radio4)
• More on James Webb (Kasper Harboe/Radio4)
• What can go wrong for James Webb? (Astrid Date/Radio4)
• Discussion with an astral traveler (Anton Ringdal & Kristoffer Kristensen/Radio LOUD)
• Which question would I like answered the most (Tina Ipsen & Anders Høeg Nissen/RumSnak; at 4:12)
• A new spiral arm in the Milky Way? (Dagmar Eben Østergaard & Astrid Date/Radio 4; at 3:40)
• Astronomers predict supernova explosion in 2037 (Maria Dohn & Anders Bech-Jessen/P1 Morgen; at 1:16:37)
• Time (travel) & entropy in Nolan's TENET (Simon Schmidt & Svenne Lund Jensen/Radio 4)
• The Big Bang (Tina Ipsen & Anders Høeg Nissen/RumSnak)
• Autumn's night sky in Norway (Kari Slaatsveen/NRK P1)
• Exoplanet β Pictoris c (Kristoffer Lind/Radio 24syv)
• Stars vs. grains of sand (Elise Farestveit/NRK P1)
• Is the Earth flat? Testing with FE'er Ole Lochmann (Per Lysholt/Radio 24syv)
• Dark energy (Peter Lund Madsen/Hjernekassen på P1)
• Popular misunderstandings about the Big Bang (Maj Bach Madsen/Radio 24syv)

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Newspapers (real papers & online)

• Interview on the Lyrids (Ritzau)
  • Picked up by e.g. DR, B.T., MSN, Ugeavisen, og Aarhus Stiftstidende,
• 2023 in astronomy (Mette Vosgerau/videnskab.dk)
• 30 shooting stars per hour: Meteor swarm brightens the night sky (Lauge Germunddsson/TV2 Øst)
  • Reported by e.g. Ekstra Bladet
• Peter studies the early galaxies – now you can have him home for a talk in your living room (Marie Kjempff/TV2 Kosmopol)
• Invite a researcher for a free talk at home (Peter Rasmussen/Ritzau)
  • Reported by e.g. Berlingske, B.T., Kristeligt Dagblad, MSN, Ugeavisen, Stiften, and Jyllands-Posten
• Increasing light pollution makes star-gazing difficult (Johan Gudmandsen/videnskab.dk)
• James Webb announced the breakthrough of the year (Christian Lindberg/videnskab.dk)
• Cosmic mystery: Galaxies from the early Universe appear much bigger than ought to be (Johan Gudmandsen/videnskab.dk)
• Are there more universes than this? (Mette Mølgaard/videnskab.dk)
• What does James Webb's first five images show? (Frederik Sonne/videnskab.dk)
• Will black holes swallow the whole Universe? (Simon Taarnskov Aabech/videnskab.dk)
  • Article translated to Norwegian on forskning.no
• What will the James Webb Space Telescope look for in the Universe? (Simon Taarnskov Aabech/videnskab.dk)
• James Webb's observational schedule is out now (Henrik Bendix/Ingeniøren)
• Hubble detects most distant single star yet, 28 billion lightyears away (Sally Cole Johnson/Laser Focus World)
• Researchers found at least 70 new rogue planets (Mette Mølgaard/videnskab.dk)
• Mankind's new eyes in space (Søren Flott/Dagbladenes Bureau)
• A Golden Guiding Star (Gunver Lystbæk Vestergård/Weekendavisen)
• This is how Life, Earth, the Sun, and the Universe end (Mikkel Vuorela/Information)
• Danish participation in the Jamew Webb Space Telescope (Frederik Thymark/videnskab.dk)
• A new spiral arm in the Milky Way? (Rasmus Fredsted/videnskab.dk)
  • Article translated to Norwegian on forskning.no
• What keeps the Solar System in place in the Milky Way? (Christian Lindberg/videnskab.dk)
  • Also published in different versions in various newspapers, e.g. B.T., Kristeligt Dagblad, JydskeVestkysten, Sjællandske Nyheder og Brædstrup Avis.
• The Nobel Prize in Physics 2020 (Anne Reil-Gammelgaard/Dagbladet Information)
• The Nobel Prize in Physics 2020 (Niklas Asp Nielsen/videnskab.dk)
• Nolan's "TENET": Time & entropy (Frederik Sonne/videnskab.dk)
  • Article translated to Norwegian on forskning.no
• Stars vs. grains of sand (Frederik Sonne/videnskab.dk)
  • Article translated to Norwegian on forskning.no
  • Article quoted in Ude & Hjemme
• Flat Earth (Martin Huseby Jensen/ABC Nyheter)
• The very first moment (Marianne Nordahl/forskning.no)
• Milky Way collision (Charlotte Price Persson/videnskab.dk)
• Galactic winds (Henrik Bendix/videnskab.dk)
  • Article translated to Norwegian on forskning.no
• Aurora (Johanne Trærup/Ekstra Bladet)
• Weightlessness (Berit Viuf/Politiken)
• Where in the Universe did Big Bang happen (Sybille Hildebrandt/videnskab.dk)

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TV & video

• The most luminous quasar ever discovered (Søren Juhler/TV2)
• How to build a galaxy / Culture Night 2023 (Ola Joensen/NBI)
• The Danish Science Festival / Book A Scientist (Stine Sylvestersen/TV2 Kosmopol)
• 5 things you should know about the James Webb telescope (videnskab.dk)
• James Webb's first images (Mette Blomsterberg/DR Aftenshowet)
• James Webb's first images to be released (Lennart Sten/TV2 NEWS)
• Niels Bohr Institute centennial (Niels Christian Buhl/TV2 Lorry; at 12:00)
• James Webb Space Telescope launch (Clara Rørsig/DR TV Avis; at 3:10)
• James Webb Space Telescope launch (TV2 Nyheder)
• James Webb Space Telescope launch; commenting on the process (Anders Havndrup/TV2 NEWS)
• "Kometernes Jul" (TV2 Christmas calendar 2021/I don't appear personally, but my equations on light and thermodynamics do)
• Co-quizmastering The Science Club science quiz for high-school students (Charlotte Price & Gustav Hylsberg Jacobsen/Videnskabsklubben)
• "Everything in the Universe is built of little particles" (Naturvidenskabens ABC)
• My video "5 things you must know about galaxies" on TV (TV2/Lorry)
• Guesting a satire TV show, talking about entropically dissolving the government (Jonatan Spang/Tæt På Sandheden)
• Astrophysical implications of a giant truffle cake (Jonatan Spang/Tæt På Sandheden)
  • Watch the full episode here
• Q&A about cosmology
• 5 things you should know about galaxies (video on videnskab.dk)
• Brorfelde Observatory; a documentary (Søren K. Lynggard/Cph. Astronomical Society)
• The creation of the Universe (Hannah Heilmann/Ingen Frygt)

If you speak Danish, click below to see 5 things you should know about the James Webb Space Telescope:

or here for 5 things you should know about about galaxies:

or here to learn how everything is made of particles:

I regularly write small articles in laymen's terms about our research at the Cosmic Dawn Center.

Some of these are picked up and reported by other media, of which I list the major ones (Danish sites, and foreign media with ≥ several million viewers/month) below.

Press releases

• Webb observes the glowing embers of colliding neutron stars
• Colliding neutron stars provide a new way to measure the expansion of the Universe
  • Picked up by e.g. phys.org, Science Daily, and Astronomy & Astrophysics news.
• Astronomers discover newborn galaxies with the James Webb Space Telescope
  • Picked up by e.g. videnskab.dk, New Scientist, Universe Today, and ScienMag.
• James Webb’s “too massive” galaxies may be even more massive
  • Picked up by e.g. phys.org, SciTechDaily, and Universe Today.
• Nearby galaxies help astronomers understand distant galaxies
  • Picked up by e.g. phys.org and The Indian Express.
• The brightest explosion ever seen
  • Picked up by e.g. videnskab.dk and Weekendavisen.
• Radio- and microwaves reveal the true nature of dark galaxies in the early Universe
  • Picked up by e.g. Radio4, Phys.org, Universe Today, and YouTube/logabalakarthikeyan.
• Black holes helped quenching star formation in the early Universe.
  • Picked up by e.g. ScienMag.
• Hubble spots most distant single star ever seen, at a record distance of 28 billion lightyears
  • Picked up by e.g. CNN, The Sun, New York Post, ABC 7, Astronomy, Phys.org, Smithsonian Magazine, Live Science, DR, videnskab.dk, Kristeligt Dagblad, and Jyllands-Posten.
• Student discovers link between global warming and the local unstability of weather
  • Picked up by e.g. videnskab.dk, TV2, Berlingske, B.T., Jyllands-Posten, Phys.org, ScienceDaily, Environmental News Network, ScienMag, and forskning.no.
• Super telescope will peer nearly 14 billion years back in time (co-written with the UCPH Science news team)
• Hubble finds distant galaxies that ran out of fuel
  • Picked up by e.g. ScienceReport, videnskab.dk, and Jyllands-Posten.
• Astronomers see the same supernova three times — and predict a fourth to appear in 16 years
  • Picked up nationally and internationally by e.g. videnskab.dk, P1 Morgen, Politiken, DR Viden, Aktuel Naturvidenskab, Ekstra Bladet, A&G (Royal Astronomical Society), Xataka, and Daily Galaxy.
• Danish Student solves how the Universe is reflected near black holes
  • Picked up nationally and internationally by e.g. videnskab.dk, Ingeniøren, Science Alert, Space & Planetary News, ScienMag, Space Daily, and Futurity
  • Most read research news article on UCPH's website 2021 (link)
• Danish participation in over a third of the new James Webb Space Telescope’s initial observations

Other news stories

• Three missions left in ESA’s race for the next medium-class space mission
• A galaxy group in the early Universe
  • Picked up by e.g. space.com, phys.org and the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics.
• Astrophysicists unveil the unexpected symmetry of cosmic explosions
  • Picked up by e.g. videnskab.dk.
• Early galaxy formation caught in the act with James Webb
• Record distant galaxy confirmed with James Webb
• A kilonova associated with a long gamma-ray burst
• Farthest galaxy candidate yet known discovered by James Webb
  • Picked up by e.g. Phys.org
• Master student discovers a group of galaxies clustered together in the early Universe (co-written with Georgios Magdis)
• Astronomers discover a swarm of galaxies orbiting a hyper-luminous galaxy
  • Picked up by e.g. Phys.org, Space.com, Universe Today, and Wikipedia (!).
• Galaxies at Cosmic Dawn
  • A 15 minutes' read on James Webb's observations of galaxies so distant and so big that they seem to defy physics.
  • Also available in a 2 minutes' overview: James Webb challenges cosmic dawn.
  • Picked up by e.g. videnskab.dk, P1, and Radio4.
• First images from the James Webb Space Telescope — press conference at DAWN
• New analysis leads to a fundamentally different view of supermassive black holes (co-written with John Weaver)
• A novel way of investigating star-forming gas in the early Universe
• Reported record-distant explosion turns out to be probably just a piece of space junk
• ALMA Discovers Rotating Infant Galaxy with Help of Natural Cosmic Telescope
• Highest detail yet observations of distant galaxy
• Understanding galaxy evolution
• ALMA captures distant colliding galaxy dying out as it loses the ability to form stars

News on colleagues' grants, awards, and research

• Charlotte Mason receives the L'Oréal-UNESCO's For Women in Science Award
• Bitten Gullberg awarded the Villum Young Investigator grant
• Charlotte Mason awarded large grant from the Carlsberg Foundation
• Shuowen Jin receives the 2022 IOP China Top Cited Paper Award
• Darach Watson receives the ERC Synergy Grant
• Kasper Heintz receives €207,000 from the Villum Foundation for building a new binocular telescope
• Francesco Valentino appointed the “Best young Italian Researcher in Denmark”
• Francesca Rizzo is awarded the Otto Hahn Medal
• Lise Christensen receives grant from the Independent Research Fund Denmark
• Seiji Fujimoto awarded the prestigious NASA Hubble Fellowship
• Karina Caputi receives a large grant from the Dutch Research Council
• Claudia Lagos awarded the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics Young Astronomer prize
• Kasper Heintz receives Carlsberg Reintegration Fellowship
• DAWNers among the world's highest cited scientists
• Shuowen Jin receives the 2021 IOP China Top Cited Paper Award
• Francesca Rizzo is awarded the Kippenhahn Prize
• Kasper Heintz is awarded 180 hours at the Very Large Telescope to study fast radio bursts
• Johan Fynbo receives DFF grant for finding quasars in a new way

• How fast does the Universe expand?
  Cosmological crisis: The Universe is expanding, but astronomers disagree on how fast.
• With James Webb back to the edge of time itself.
  James Webb, its science, and its first results.
• How far is it to the most distant galaxy?
  Contributed chapter to the Niels Bohr Institute's 100 years' anniversary book Lyset fra Bohr ("The light from Bohr").
• Spiral galaxies
  How do spiral galaxies get their beautiful arms?
  • Originally in Norwegian, but now available in Danish.
• Galaxies
  About the Niels Bohr Institute's research in galaxies, aimed at prospective students (in Danish).
• Black holes reflect the Universe
  An explanation of my colleague's calculations of the spacetime warping near the surface of a black hole (in Danish).
• Understanding galaxy evolution
  A slightly-more-complex-than-usual story about how astronomers learn about galaxies and their evolution (an English press release about this can be found here).
• How are galaxies formed?
  Step-by-step galaxy formation.
• What is a galaxy?
  …what are they made of, and which kinds are there?
• The Big Bang — an eyewitness account.
  What would you experience if you were present during the first 15 minutes after the creation of the Universe?
  • Originally in Danish, but translated to English and Norwegian.
  • Awarded best Danish public outreach on Forskerzonen.
• The Beginning of the Universe (second author).

In addition to the published articles above I've created a small encyclopedia for non-astronomers with short introductions for laymen to some of the stuff that I spend my time on.

I also tweet regularly about astronomy: Follow @anisotropela

I regularly give talks on various astronomy-related topics to high school students, amateur astronomy associations, companies, and the general public. Even in prisons!

Some topics of the talks I give are:

• James Webb — the new space telescope
• Galaxies — the building blocks of the Universe
• Cosmology — then and now
• Lyman α — a window to the distant Universe
• The dark Universe (on dark matter, dark energy, and black holes)
• Stars — birth, life, and death
• Spectroscopy and astronomy
• My research
• Science communication

Contact me if you'd like me to come give a talk. It'll be fun!

I answer questions about physics and astronomy at

• My Q&A column
• physics.StackExchange
• astronomy.StackExchange
• The Niels Bohr Institute's Q&A

Do you have a question? Ask it using the form below/on the right.

Various events

• Panel debate about James Webb with science editor Lasse Foghsgaard at Politiken Festival.
• Organized a live-streaming of the James Webb Space Telescope in the Planetarium, for the public and the press (postponed a year due to corona, instead being about the latest results from James Webb).
• Inauguration of the Planetarium's new dome together with e.g. Anja C. Andersen, Holger Bech Nielsen and Pernille Rosendahl. Hosts: Peter Falktoft and Esben Bjerre.
• Co-quizmastering a science quiz for high-school students.
• Science Slam at the Planetarium. Emcee'd by Per Vers.
• Panel debate about science and religion with physicist Troels C. Petersen and religion-historian Mikael Rothstein and 200 pupils from Rysensteen High School.

Consultancy

• Conversation about black holes, as inspiration for filmmaker Henrike Meyer's movie To be an extra.
• Guiding illustrator Klavs Moltzen designing an interactive stellar sky, found in the Baneby Park.
• Fact-checker / scientific consultant on Himlen set fra Jorden ("The sky from below") by Jakob A. Andersen.
• Consultant on DR's ultra:bit i forskernes fodspor; a course for secondary schoolers on exoplanets.
• Explained various equations on light and thermodynamics that were used in the TV2 Christmas calendar "Kometernes Jul".

Workshops

• Niels Bohr Institute theme day.
• Space seminar for teachers.
• Astronomy in primary school with talk and activities.
• Astronomy in kindergarten.
• Exhibition on the National Museeum of Denmark about Tycho Brahe, aimed mainly at secondary school and high-school students. Among other things, the students were to measure angular distances on this 3×5 m² image of Cassiopeia, using a large, homemade sextant.

Posters & flyers

• Poster for soliciting Master students in astronomy.
• Flyer explaining what we did at DARK.

Supervising school pupils

• I occasionally help/guide/cheer on/supervise high school or secondary school students doing astronomy/physics projects.