Cambridge, MA - W49A might be one of the best-kept secrets in our galaxy. This star-forming region shines 100 times brighter than the Orion nebula, but is so obscured by dust that very...

The element phosphorus is an indispensable ingredient for life along with carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, and sulfur. But phosphorus is much less abundant in the universe than these ...

Cambridge, MA - First discovered in 2007, "fast radio bursts" continue to defy explanation. These cosmic chirps last for only a thousandth of a second. The characteristics of the radio...

Although many of the details about star formation are vigorously debated, the general principles are reasonably well understood. Stars form as the gas and dust in a molecular cloud coale...

Cambridge, MA - The scale of the universe can be difficult to comprehend. Pretend you are going to make a scale model with a basketball representing the Earth and a tennis ball as the ...

Gamma ray bursts (GRBs) are the brightest events in the known universe. These flashes of high-energy light occur about once a day, randomly, from around the sky. While a burst is underwa...

Cambridge, MA - When a star explodes as a supernova, it shines brightly for a few weeks or months before fading away. Yet the material blasted outward from the explosion still glows hu...

The universe was created 13.73 billion years ago in a blaze of light: the big bang. Roughly 380,000 years later, after matter (mostly hydrogen) had cooled enough for neutral atoms to fo...

One of the most famous objects in the sky - the Cassiopeia A supernova remnant - will be on display like never before, thanks to NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and a new project from th...

Cambridge, MA - Hopes are high for Comet ISON, which has the potential to become the most spectacular comet seen in years. ISON is speeding through the inner solar system at about 120,...