ALMA Reveals First Ever Snow Line Seen Around a Distant Star
Using the new Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) telescope, astronomers have discovered a CO snow line in an infant solar system. A snow line has…
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics News
Colliding Neutron Stars Produce Gold
Update September 15, 2020: New research indicates that neutron star collisions do not actually produce that much gold. A new study from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center…
Harvard Scientists Develop Interactive Website to Model Exoplanet Interiors
Scientists from the Department of Astronomy at Harvard University have developed a new interactive website that models the interiors of exoplanets. An interactive tool to…
Sun’s Loops are Tapered, Wider at the Top and Narrower at the Ends
New research presented at the meeting of the American Astronomical Society Solar Physics Division suggests that coronal loops of the Sun are tapered, being wider…
Magnetic Winds From a Young Star in the Orion Nebula
Astronomers used the Very Large Array radio telescopes to track the motions of the gas near radio Source I in the Orion Nebula for over…
Astronomers Discover Transiting Planets in Star Cluster NGC 6811
A team of astronomers have discovered two planets (Kepler-66b and Kepler-67b) that are about three-fourths the size of Neptune orbiting Sun-like stars 3,000 light-years from…
New Observations Help Astronomers Learn How Young Stars Accrete Material and Grow
New observations of our Sun, combined with computer modeling, have helped astronomers resolve a decade-long argument over how to measure the accretion rates of growing…
Astronomers Discover Pulsations in Crystalized Remnant of Burnt-Out Star GD 518
Using the 2.1-meter Otto Struve Telescope, a team of astronomers have discovered pulsations from the crystalized remnant of the burnt-out star GD 518. Austin —…
TW Hydrae Provides Insight About the Birth of Our Sun
By studying TW Hydrae, researchers are getting a glimpse of what happened to our Sun some four and a half billion years ago. Indianapolis, IN…
NGC 6334 Experiencing a “Mini-Starburst”
New research presented at this year’s meeting of the American Astronomical Society suggests that NGC 6334 is forming stars at a more rapid pace than…
Researchers Turn Astronomical Data Into Music
A new website allows listeners to hear the music of the stars, turning Chandra X-ray data into musical notes. Plato, the Greek philosopher and mathematician,…
Herschel Discovers the Earliest Known Starburst Galaxy
Using data from the Herschel Space Observatory, researchers report finding the earliest known galaxy undergoing a massive burst of star formation, existing at least as…
Kepler-76b: A Hot Jupiter With Superrotation
Researchers used the BEEER algorithm to identify a hot Jupiter in the Kepler light curve, Kepler-76b. Eight hundred and eighty nine exoplanets (planets around stars…
BEER Algorithm Identifies Exoplanet Kepler-76b
Using the BEER algorithm, which relies on Einstein’s special theory of relativity, scientists discovered a new exoplanet known as Kepler-76b. Detecting alien worlds presents a…
Magnetic Imaging of Living Cells with Sub-Cellular Spatial Resolution
In a new study, researchers present a method for resolving the magnetic structure of living biological specimens at a sub-cellular level. Magnetic field measurement techniques…
Astronomers Investigate the Links between Supernova Remnants and Cosmic Rays
In a newly published study, astronomers investigate the links between supernova remnants and cosmic rays. Using a new optical spectrometer to analyze the shock activity…
Water Planets in the Habitable Zone: A Closer Look at Kepler 62e and 62f
In a new paper, astronomers explore the properties Kelper 62e and 62f, which are part of the five-planet system orbiting the star Kepler-62, suggesting that…
New Study Challenges Planck Results
A new study from researchers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics challenges the inflation model, arguing that the new Planck results are actually too good….