Because all cosmic objects evolve with time, astronomers sometimes have a difficult time deciding if two sources that seem different are actually related but just in different stages of l...

The corona of the sun is the hot (over a million kelvin), gaseous outer region of its atmosphere. The corona is threaded by intense magnetic fields that extend upwards from the surface in...

SAO scientist Justin Kasper is one of three recipients of the second annual Smithsonian Institution Secretary’s Awards for Excellence. This yearly award recognizes individuals for their s...

The majority of extra-solar planets (about 278 of them) are more massive than Jupiter. About 20% of this majority group orbit their stars at a distances of less than one-tenth of an astro...

Cambridge, MA How do astronomers weigh a star that's trillions of miles away and way too big to fit on a bathroom scale? In most cases they can't, although they can get a best estimate u...

Of the nearly 500 extra-solar planets that have been confirmed to date, only about a dozen have actually been seen in images. Because planets are so much fainter than their host stars, s...

Cambridge, MA Astronomers using the South Pole Telescope report that they have discovered the most massive galaxy cluster yet seen at a distance of 7 billion light-years. The cluster (de...

Cambridge, MA - Dr. John Peter Huchra died unexpectedly on Friday, October 8 at the age of 61. He was the Robert O. & Holly Thomis Doyle Professor of Cosmology and the Senior Advis...

There are now over 490 confirmed extrasolar planets. The vast majority are gas giants like Jupiter, but they are much stranger because many orbit close to their stars and so are much h...

G327.1-1.1 is the aftermath of a massive star that exploded as a supernova in the Milky Way galaxy. A highly magnetic, rapidly spinning neutron star called a pulsar was left behind after ...