Globular clusters are gravitationally bound ensembles of stars, as many as a million stars in some cases, grouped in roughly spherical clusters with diameters as small as only tens of lig...

Cambridge, MA - "The Dynamic Sun," a new exhibit conceived, designed and built by researchers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA), has just opened at the Smithsoni...

Alyssa A. Goodman, Harvard professor of astronomy and research associate of the Smithsonian Institution, has been selected the 2015 Scientist of the Year, part of the Harvard Foundation A...

In 1969, the astrophysicists Rashid Sunyaev and Yakov Zel'dovich realized that the then recently discovered cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR) would be distorted by hot cosmic g...

It's a little known fact that three-quarters of a mile from the South Pole lie some of Earth's most powerful telescopes. Operated all year round, they are engaged in one of the great scie...

Dust particles smaller than about a wavelength of light are abundant in our solar system, created by collisions between asteroids and from the evaporation of comets. As they scatter sunli...

The AAS Henry Norris Russell Lectureship is awarded annually for a lifetime of eminence in astronomical research. In 2014 the Russell Lectureship went to George B. Field "for a lifetime o...

Collisions between galaxies, and even less dramatic gravitational encounters between them, are recognized as triggering star formation. Observations of luminous galaxies, powered by star...

A newly discovered cosmic object may help provide answers to some long-standing questions about how black holes evolve and influence their surroundings, according to a new study using NAS...

More than half of all stars are in multiple systems: binary stars, or even triplets or quadruplets, that orbit one another. No one is quite sure how or why they form, but the effects can...