In the 1980's, observations of nearby galaxies made with the Infrared Astronomical Satellite, along with observations of the far-infrared/submillimeter background with the Cosmic Backgrou...

Cambridge, MA - We only have one example of a planet with life: Earth. But within the next generation, it should become possible to detect signs of life on planets orbiting distant sta...

Avi Loeb, chair of the Harvard Astronomy Department and director of the Institute for Theory and Computation, has published a new eBook: "From the First Star to Milkomeda," available on K...

Quasars are among the most luminous sources in the universe, shining with a total luminosity of hundreds or thousands of Milky Ways. Their large radiative emission enable us to observe th...

Cambridge, MA - Prominent astrophysicist Stephen (Steve) S. Murray died on Monday, August 10, 2015. Dr. Murray is widely recognized for advancing the field of high-energy astrophysics...

In the 1870's astronomers first noted the presence of yellow clouds on the surface of Mars and suggested they were caused by windblown dust. Today, dust storms on Mars are well known and ...

On October 1-3, 2015, the Giant Magellan Telescope Organization will present the third annual GMT Community Science Meeting. This year's conference, entitled "(re)Solving Galaxies in the ...

The Kuiper belt is the region of the solar system situated just beyond Neptune's orbit, about 40 AU from the Sun (one AU - astronomical unit - is the Earth's average distance from the Sun...

The Kepler mission has so far spotted an astonishing 4696 possible exoplanets; about one third of them, 1030, have been confirmed as exoplanets so far. A small percentage of this set are ...

Cambridge, MA - Skygazers at northern latitudes are familiar with the W-shaped star pattern of Cassiopeia the Queen. This circumpolar constellation is visible year-round near the North...