The Earth is not a perfectly round sphere, nor is its internal composition exactly homogeneous. As a result, the Earth's gravitational field varies from place to place -- a ball dropped ...

Cambridge, MA For decades, astronomers have known that the Milky Way galaxy is on a collision course with the neighboring Andromeda spiral galaxy. What was unknown until now: the fate of...

Cambridge, MA For the first time, astronomers have created a rough map of a planet orbiting a distant sun-like star, employing a technique that may one day enable mapping of Earth-like w...

The Sun typically emits about one-millionth of its total luminosity in the X-ray portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. This radiation comes from the hot corona of the Sun (the extended...

Cambridge, MA NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer is celebrating its fourth year in space with some of M81's "hottest" stars.In a new ultraviolet image, the magnificent M81 spiral galaxy is...

Cambridge, MA Today, astronomers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) announced that they have found the most massive known transiting extrasolar planet. The gas gian...

In the northern sky, not far from the handle of the Big Dipper, lies a patch of the heavens that is relatively dark, that is to say, free of bright stars and the diffuse glow of the Milky...

Cambridge, MA Two rambunctious young stars are destroying their natal dust cloud with powerful jets of radiation, in an infrared image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. The stars are ...

Our Milky Way home galaxy, like most galaxies, shines brightly in visible light because its stars are hot and emit at optical wavelengths. But twenty years ago the Infrared Astronomy Sat...

Cambridge, MA New research shows that black holes are not the ultimate destroyers that are often portrayed in popular culture. Instead, warm gas escaping from the clutches of enormous bl...