Planetary systems form out of disks of gas and dust around young stars. How the formation proceeds, however, is complex and poorly understood. Many physical processes are involved includ...

Cambridge, MA - The next generation of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-V), directed by Juna Kollmeier of the Carnegie Institution for Science, will move forward with mapping the ent...

On November 8, 2017, the CfA community lost Jeff McClintock, a wonderful friend, colleague, and an unparalleled expert on all things related to stellar size black holes in binary systems....

Aurorae are seen in all of the planets in our solar system that have magnetic fields, including of course the Earth, and have even been detected around brown dwarf stars (known for having...

The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) lost a member of its family with the passing of Alison Doane on October 29, 2017. Alison was a key figure at the CfA. She joined the...

Cambridge, MA -

Quantum mechanics incorporates some very non-intuitive properties of matter. Quantum superposition, for example, allows an atom to be simultaneously in two different states with its spin ...

The size and shape of our home galaxy, the Milky Way, reflect not only its current structure but also its evolutionary history, providing details that form the basis for our understanding...

Cambridge, MA - A small, recently discovered asteroid -- or perhaps a comet -- appears to have originated from outside the solar system, coming from somewhere else in our galaxy. If so...

There are currently about fifty known exoplanets with diameters that range from Mars-sized to several times the Earth's and that also reside within their stars' habitable zone – the orbit...