Cataclysmic variable stars (CVs) are white dwarf stars that are accreting from an orbiting, low mass binary companion star. The accretion is facilitated by the proximity of the stars; typ...

Cambridge, MA - This winter has brought many intense and powerful storms, with cold fronts sweeping across much of the United States. On a much grander scale, astronomers have discover...

The discovery of an exoplanet has most often resulted from the monitoring of a star's flicker (the transiting method) or its wobble (the radial velocity method). Discovery by direct imagi...

Cambridge, MA - NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) is undergoing final preparations in Florida for its April 16 launch to find undiscovered worlds around nearby stars,...

There is a process at work in most galaxies that affects both the central black hole mass as well as the galaxy's global velocity structure and luminosity. Astronomers suspect that feedb...

A new program called "Finding Life in Outer Space" debuted on the Smithsonian Channel on March 25. The scientific lead for this program is Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory's Jeremy ...

Measuring the mass of a celestial body is one of the most challenging tasks in observational astronomy. The most successful method uses binary systems because the orbital parameters of t...

A merger between galaxies can trigger can intense radiation from bursts star formation and from the accretion of gas onto the two supermassive black holes at their centers. Astronomers h...

On February 12, 2018, the pioneering geologist Ursula Marvin passed away. Ursula was born and raised in Vermont, and went to college at Tufts, graduating in 1943. She developed at Tufts a...

Over 3500 extra-solar planets have been confirmed to date. Most of them were discovered using the transit method, and astronomers can combine the transit light curves with velocity wobbl...