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Anton Pannekoek Institute for Astronomy Anton Pannekoek Institute for Astronomy

Veni's for Julia Bodensteiner and Robin Baeyens

25 August 2025

Two UvA astronomers have been awarded a Veni grant. The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) has awarded Veni grants to a total of 28 talented UvA scientists. The Veni is a personal scientific grant and is part of the NWO Talent Program. Dr. Julia Bodensteiner and Dr. Robin Baeyens received the grants for their work on massive stars and exoplanet atmospheres, respectively.

Each researcher will be awarded a maximum of €320,000. The grant is an incentive for adventurous, talented, and groundbreaking researchers to further develop their own research ideas over the next three years. NWO will award a total of two hundred research projects in this round.

About the research

How a cosmic dance tells us about gravitational waves

Dr. J.K. Bodensteiner (v), University of Amsterdam

Gravitational waves are ripples in space caused by collisions of pairs of black holes or neutron stars at the end of a dramatic cosmic dance. How such tight pairs of compact stellar remnants form is a central question in astrophysics. The prevailing theory interprets them as end-products of close binary evolution, but which and how many binaries end up rippling space is hard to answer. I will use new, unprecedented observations of OeBe stars, stars spinning fast enough to shed material, which represent an intermediate stage in the pathway to gravitational waves, to greatly improve our understanding of these end-products.

High in the sky: Illuminating exoplanet atmospheres with starlight

Dr. R. Baeyens (m), University of Amsterdam

Planets beyond our Solar System can have atmospheres. But which molecules these are composed of, is not well known. Nonetheless, the atmospheric composition reveals how a planet was formed and whether it may host life. In this research project, the James Webb Space Telescope is used to observe the atmospheres of exoplanets, and it shows us how the atmospheric composition can be changed by starlight.

Delighted

Bodensteiner and Baeyens are both delighted with the award. Bodensteiner: "We have known these rapidly spinning OeBe stars for over 200 years, but with my Veni project I hope to be able to finally shed more light their origin." Baeyens: "One example of a gas changed by starlight is ozone in the Earth's atmosphere. But we don't yet know how starlight affects exoplanets. Figuring out this question is crucial to understand the evolution of exoplanets and whether they might host life."