Knowledge of astronomy and astrophysics is essential to understanding among the most elementary questions of our universe. We can not know the origins of something—from galaxies to black holes to life itself—with out learning the cosmos intimately. New telescope missions are bringing us nearer to solutions, nevertheless it takes time. “You need a lot of exploration to find anything that might later be perceived as useful,” mentioned Sara Seager, an astrophysicist and planetary scientist at MIT. “Once in a while, we get a major discovery that changes life as we know it.”

The Degrees of the Future 2022 high Astronomy & Astrophysics applications are:

Boston University | Boston, Massachusetts
California Institute of Technology | Pasadena, California
Carnegie Mellon University | Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Cornell University | Ithaca, New York
Harvard University | Cambridge, Massachusetts
Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Cambridge, Massachusetts
Michigan State University | East Lansing, Michigan
Ohio State University | Columbus, Ohio
Pennsylvania State University | University Park, Pennsylvania
Princeton University | Princeton, New Jersey
Stanford University | Stanford, California
Stony Brook University | Stony Brook, New York
University of Arizona | Tucson, Arizona
University of California, Berkeley | Berkeley, California
University of California, Los Angeles | Los Angeles, California
University of California, Santa Cruz | Santa Cruz, California
University of Chicago | Chicago, Illinois
University of Colorado Boulder | Boulder, Colorado
University of Kentucky | Lexington, Kentucky
University of Maryland, College Park | College Park, Maryland
University of Michigan | Ann Arbor, Michigan
University of Texas at Austin | Austin, Texas
University of Virginia | Charlottesville, Virginia
University of Wisconsin-Madison | Madison, Wisconsin
Vanderbilt University | Nashville, Tennessee

How did Gizmodo decide this 12 months’s honorees? Check out the methodology or return to the total Degrees of the Future 2022 listing.