Unfortunately for Moiya McTier, reality doesn't always imitate fiction. Sometimes in life — in McTier's life, anyway — the galaxy throws you a curve.In March, the Harvard senior was finis...

Cambridge, MA - Earlier this year scientists presented evidence for Planet Nine, a Neptune-mass planet in an elliptical orbit 10 times farther from our Sun than Pluto. Since then theor...

Oxygen is the third most abundant element in the universe, after hydrogen and helium. It is an important constituent of the clouds of gas and dust in space, especially when combined in mo...

On April 12, 2016, philanthropist and Internet entrepreneur Yuri Milner announced an ambitious plan called Breakthrough Starshot, whose goal is to send a fleet of tiny probes to Alpha Cen...

The familiar star Spica (Alpha Virginis) is the fifteenth brightest star in the night sky, in part because it is relatively nearby, only about 250 light-years away. It is easy to find by ...

Become an astronomer for a day! Enjoy telescope tours, interactive multimedia exhibits, hands-on activities, live demonstrations, prizes, and our ever-popular Scientist Cafe, where visito...

In the last century, the linguist George Zipf noticed that the second most common word in English ("of") was used about half as often as the most common word ("the"), the third most commo...

Nearly all stars have winds. The Sun's wind, which originates from its hot outer layer (corona), contains charged particles emitted at a rate equivalent to about one-millionth of the moon...

Eat your heart out, Tatooine: A newly discovered alien planet has not one, not two, but three suns in its sky.While scientists know of many planets with two suns, a planet with three brig...

Cambridge, MA - Last February a team of astronomers reported detecting an afterglow from a mysterious event called a fast radio burst, which would pinpoint the precise position of the ...