On April 10, 2017, the University of Turin in Italy conferred an honorary degree in physics to the CfA's Margaret Geller in a day-long celebration.Margaret J. Geller is a pioneer in mappi...

A globular cluster is a roughly spherical ensemble of stars (as many as several million) that are gravitationally bound together, and typically located in the outer regions of galaxies. L...

Become an astronomer for a day! Hosted as part of the annual Cambridge Science Festival, Cambridge Explores the Universe invites space scientists of all ages to explore the wonder of the ...

Cambridge, MA - The study of alien worlds is entering its next phase as astronomers amass the best planets outside our Solar System to look for signs of life. A newly discovered "super...

Astronomers can roughly estimate how long it takes for a new star to form: it is the time it takes for material in a gas cloud to collapse in free-fall, and is set by the mass, the size o...

Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Earth (only 4.28 light-years away) is getting a lot of attention these days. It hosts a planet, Proxima Cen b, whose mass is about 1.3 Earth-mas...

Cambridge, MA - Every so often the sun emits an explosive burst of charged particles that makes its way to Earth and often wreaks havoc on power grids, aircraft and satellite systems. ...

When a star like our sun gets to be very old, after another seven billion years or so, it will shrink to a fraction of its radius and become a white dwarf star, no longer able to sustain ...

Cambridge, MA -

Astronomers studying Mars first noted the presence of yellow clouds on its surface in the 1870's. Today these windblown dust storms on Mars are well known, and can span local, regional o...