Professor of Astrophysics Isobel Hook has been awarded €2.5 million for research into supernovae and dark energy by the European Research Council.

She is one of 319 leading researchers across Europe chosen out of 3,329 applications as part of the EU’s Horizon Europe programme. The Advanced Grants give senior researchers the opportunity to pursue ambitious, curiosity-driven projects that could lead to major scientific breakthroughs.

President of the European Research Council, Professor Maria Leptin, said: “The new Advanced Grant projects demonstrate the creativity, ambition, and intellectual boldness that frontier research requires. The ERC’s role is to support researchers who are asking difficult scientific questions and want to venture into unexplored territory in pursuit of new knowledge. Congratulations to all our new grantees.”

The five-year Sparkles project at the School of Physics and Astronomy will allow new understanding of supernovae environments and ultimately advance knowledge on the accelerating expansion of the universe.

Professor Hook said: “I am absolutely delighted that this ERC grant has been awarded. The timing is ideal as a new generation of telescopes is now coming online. With this funding, I will set up a team to analyse new observations of distant exploding stars - supernovae - and the galaxies in which they explode. The long-term goal is to use the supernovae to learn about the mysterious dark energy that is believed to be pushing the universe apart.”

When stars die as supernovae, the ejected material enables the next generation of stars, planets and perhaps even life to be formed. At the same time, supernovae regulate further star formation in their host galaxies. This fascinating interplay between supernovae and their surroundings affects our understanding of the evolution of the universe itself, as it impacts the ‘standard candle’ nature of Type Ia supernovae used in cosmology.

The Lancaster team will bring novel approaches and apply them to new data from the Euclid space mission and several new ground-based observatories, which will combine to form a spectacular dataset on a massive scale. They will find supernovae, characterize them and pinpoint their location relative to structures within their host galaxies such as spiral arms. Different environmental effects on the supernovae will be compared in order to optimise their use in the study of dark energy.

The team will also produce a comprehensive dataset of about 90,000 supernovae and their environments for use by the scientific community, potentially including previously unknown supernovae classes.

Professor Hook said: “Sparkles will generate a new understanding of supernovae environments and ultimately advance knowledge on the accelerating expansion of the universe. With new surveys starting, now is the time to make this major leap in a dynamic field.”