A new study shows that planets bigger than Earth and smaller than Neptune are common outside the Solar System. The same international team including astronomers from the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA) has also announced the discovery of a planet about twice the size of Earth orbiting its star farther out than Saturn is to the Sun.
The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) is launching a nationwide strategic investment in the future of rural education called Smithsonian Scientists Taking Astronomy to Rural Schools (STARS). The Smithsonian STARS program will equip schools with a donated telescope, accessories such as solar lenses, ongoing teacher training, and aligned astronomy lessons designed to inspire curiosity and strengthen science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education for the nation’s approximately 9.8 million rural schoolchildren.
Astronomers have discovered strong evidence for the closest supermassive black hole outside of the Milky Way galaxy. This giant black hole is located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, one of the nearest galactic neighbors to our own.
For the first time, astronomers have imaged dozens of belts around nearby stars where comets and tiny pebbles within them are orbiting.
The missing ingredient for cooking up stars has been spotted for the first time by astronomers. Much like a pressure cooker has a weight on top of its lid to keep the pressure in, merging galaxies may need magnetic fields to create the ideal conditions for star formation.
An international team of scientists, including multiple astronomers from CfA, have made the first-ever detection of a mid-IR flare from Sgr A*.
Astronomers have unveiled an explosive cosmic fireworks display of stars interacting with their environment. This dazzling spectacle – due to powerful winds flowing from the stars – marks a major milestone in the ability to study the formation of the largest stars and to better understand how they affect their environments.
An international team of astronomers took pictures of more than 40 individual stars in a galaxy so far away its light dates back to when the universe was only half its present age.
CfA has entered into an MOU with NSF NRAO on the Black Hole Explorer (BHEX), a project which would increase the capabilities of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) by launching it into space.
For nearly six months, during the year 1181, people looked up to the skies to find a new star glittering in the constellation Cassiopeia. Chinese and Japanese astronomers recorded the rare event, an explosion of a star, or supernova. Now, astronomers have mapped the location and speed of those unusual filaments in three dimensions for the first time.
Since the 1960s, astronomers have wondered how the Sun's supersonic "solar wind," a stream of energetic particles that flows out into the Solar System, continues to receive energy once it leaves the Sun. Now, thanks to a lucky line up of two spacecraft currently in space studying the Sun, they may have discovered the answer.
A new image from the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration— which includes scientists from the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA)— has uncovered strong and organized magnetic fields spiraling from the edge of the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*). Seen in polarized light for the first time, this new view of the monster lurking at the heart of the Milky Way Galaxy has revealed a magnetic field structure strikingly similar to that of the black hole at the center of the M87 galaxy, suggesting that strong magnetic fields may be common to all black holes. This similarity also hints toward a hidden jet in Sgr A*.
A newly discovered nearby supernova whose star ejected up to a full solar mass of material in the year prior to its explosion is challenging the standard theory of stellar evolution.
Media are invited to participate in a teleconference discussing the upcoming launch of TEMPO on Wednesday, April 5. TEMPO will soon provide the first-ever hourly scans of air pollution over greater North America.
On Tuesday, March 14, NASA and the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian will host a mission and program briefing for the new, space-based instrument TEMPO, which will soon deliver detailed data and analysis of air pollution over greater North America.
Dust launched from the moon’s surface or from a space station positioned between Earth and the sun could reduce enough solar radiation to mitigate the impacts of climate change.
A new strategy for tracing magnetized structures in 3D will help address key questions about the influence of magnetic fields in the cosmos.
The condemned planet could help answer questions about the fate of other worlds as their solar systems evolve.
As massive as the black hole at the center of the Milky Way, the behemoth is hosted by a dwarf galaxy less than 1 million light-years away. Invisible so far — maybe not for long.
New observations of WASP-39 b reveal a never-before-seen molecule in the atmosphere of a planet — sulfur dioxide — among other details.
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