Cambridge, MA The constellation of Orion is a hotbed of massive star formation, most prominently in the Great Nebula that sits in Orion's sword. The glowing gas of the Nebula is powered...

The nucleus of an active galaxy, an AGN, contains a massive black hole that is vigorously accreting material. In the process it typically ejects jets of particles and radiates brightly a...

Astronomers have just published the discovery of the farthest known object in the cosmos: a star that exploded when the universe was only 630 million years old -- only 4.6% of its current...

Cambridge, MA Nearly 100 years ago, scientists detected the first signs of cosmic rays - subatomic particles (mostly protons) that zip through space at nearly the speed of light. The mos...

Stars, the most familiar objects in the night sky, make up only a tiny percentage of the total amount of matter in the universe -- about 2%. Another approximately 8% of the matter is in ...

The Orion Nebula is one of the most beautiful sights of the winter night sky, its gas and dust glowing from the intense ultraviolet radiation ofa cluster of massive young stars. At 1300 l...

Over the next five years, Mark Reid and an international team of scientists will use the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) to map the spiral structure of the Milky Way. Using methanol and w...

Some dramatic galaxies eject gigantic, collimated jets of ionized gas millions of light-years long, powered by the massive black holes at their centers. The ionized jets are detected at r...

Most stars form in clusters. Recent studies of nearby star forming regions find that about three-quarters of their young stars are located in groups with ten or more members. The format...

In celebration of the International Year of Astronomy, Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum recently collaborated with Harvard College Observatory to open its first Public Observat...