Steven Balbus, Savilian Professor of Astronomy, and John Hawley (University of Virginia, USA), have been jointly awarded the 2013 Shaw Prize "for their discovery and study of the magnetorotational instability, and for demonstrating that this instability leads to turbulence and is a viable mechanism for angular momentum transport in astrophysical accretion disks." The Shaw Prize is widely considered to be among the highest honours in astronomy. Further details can be found at http://www.shawprize.org

Europe's Planck satellite has compiled the most detailed map ever of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). The map gives a picture of how the Universe looked just 380,000 years after the Big Bang, and shows the seeds of cosmic structure.

The team behind the mission, including scientists from Oxford, report results giving a more accurate recipe for the composition of the Universe and the relative amounts of dark matter and dark energy, and bolsters evidence for inflation in the early Universe.

Have you had a look at 'What's Hot' on the front page of iTunesU? You would have seen that the Stargazing podcast series is listed there.

For a complete list of free podcasts, check here.

Message from Roger Davies, Philip Wetton Professor of Astrophysics, University of Oxford

Dear all,

The 11th January this year marked the first anniversary of Steve Rawlings’ death. It has been a very difficult twelve months – Steve was a much loved colleague and is greatly missed as both a person and a phenomenal astrophysicist.

A new section available

A new section with blogs has been made available, and a few new blogs have been started already: Astro, Funding news, OSMOSIS Research Cruise and Alumni are already up.

To visit, go to the top menu at the home page -> MORE -> BLOGS