On August 9, NASA announced that SPHEREx is among three Medium-Class Explorer (MIDEX) missions selected for a "Phase A" study. The SPHEREx team, along with the two other chosen MIDEX mis...

A black hole X-ray binary (BHXB) is a black hole orbiting a normal star. When matter from the normal star accretes onto the black hole, a jet of charged particles is ejected at relativis...

The physical properties of the Milky Way, our home galaxy, and its evolutionary history are keys to understanding the history of galaxy formation across the cosmos, and details like the e...

Cambridge, MA - In everyday life, ultraviolet, or UV, light earns a bad reputation for being responsible for sunburns and other harmful effects on humans. However, research suggests th...

Ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) are extremely luminous, compact X-ray sources found in some nearby spiral galaxies. The nature of these mysterious sources is not well understood, but ...

The origin of binary stars has long been one of the central problems of astronomy. One of the main questions is how stellar mass affects the tendency to be multiple. There have been num...

Searches for the most distant galaxies have now probed earlier than the first billion years in the history of the universe, early enough to start seeing the primary effects of the first s...

Cambridge, MA - NASA has announced that the Arcus X-ray mission concept has been selected for a "Phase A" study as part of the $250 million Medium-Class Explorer (MIDEX) program.

Cambridge, MA - On August 21, 2017, millions of people across North America will experience a total solar eclipse for the first time. Scientists around the world, including several gro...

The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) lost a true friend and generous supporter with the passing of Landon T. Clay on July 29, 2017.