Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Astronomers spotted the most distant astronomical object ever
Shining only ~300 million years after the Big Bang, it may be home to the oldest stars in the universe.
Mysterious finger-like features in solar flares explained
A new explanation for the mysterious downward-moving dark voids seen in some solar flares.
Astronomers observed a new type of binary star long theorized to exist
The discovery finally confirms how a rare type of star in the universe forms and evolves.
Mysterious 500-light-year-wide ‘cavity’ discovered in space
The sphere-shaped phenomenon may explain how supernovae lead to star formation.
Modeling infrared spectra of water vapor from the nuclear region of the galaxy
A barred galaxy's massive molecular inflow.
First cloudless, Jupiter-like planet discovered
It completes a rotation around its star in just four-and-a-half days.
A Rosetta stone for planet formation
A disk with gaps suggestive of clearing by newly forming planets.
Astronomers determined the spin of the supermassive black hole in the Milky Way
The Spin of the Supermassive Black Hole in our Galaxy.
Dark matter and massive galaxies
Dark matter is a hypothetical invisible mass thought to be responsible for adding gravity to galaxies and other bodies. However, the nature of dark...
The milky way could be spreading life from star to star
In 1871, Lord Kelvin suggested that life could propagate by traveling on meteorites. More than a century later, it was hypothesized that some achondrites were...
Hugely exciting: Oldest galaxies in the universe found
The group from the Institute for Computational Cosmology at Durham University and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics has discovered proof that the faintest satellite...