Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian

First atmosphere detected on a habitable-zone rocky world

In a major milestone in the search for life on other planets, astronomers have detected, for the first time, an atmosphere ...
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South Pole Telescope, Antarctica

SPT is a 10-meter telescope designed to measure tiny CMB temperature ripples in submillimeter or microwave light, between infrared and radio on the spectrum of light. Its capabilities also make it an ...
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Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO)

SDO is part of NASA’s Living With a Star (LWS) program of solar space observatories. It was launched in 2010 and has been operating ever since, providing data on the Sun’s atmosphere, magnetic field, ...
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Billions of Celestial Objects Revealed in Gargantuan Survey of the Milky Way

Cambridge, MA – A new astronomical survey is a portrait of gargantuan proportions. It shows the staggering number of stars bristling among the wispy bands of dust in our home galaxy, the Milky Way.
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The Tilt in our Stars: The Shape of the Milky Way's Halo of Stars is Realized

New data throws out the textbook picture of a spherical stellar halo and reinforces a dynamic origin story of two galaxies that collided billions of years ago. Cambridge, Mass. – A new study has ...
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AI Helps Astronomers Discover a New Type of Supernova

Astronomers have discovered what may be a massive star exploding while trying to swallow a black hole, offering an explanation for one of the strangest supernovae ever seen. Cambridge, MA - ...
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Astronomers Discover Rare Distant Object in Sync with Neptune

This object, called 2020 VN40, is the first confirmed body that orbits the sun once for every ten orbits Neptune completes. Cambridge, MA — A team of astronomers led by the Center for Astrophysics | ...
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Astronomers Unveil Strong Magnetic Fields Spiraling at the Edge of Milky Way’s Central Black Hole

CfA astronomers led two new EHT studies that have produced the first polarized light image of the supermassive black hole at the heart of the Milky Way Galaxy. Cambridge, MA--A new image from the ...
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Alien Planet Found Spiraling to its Doom around an Aging Star

Cambridge, Mass. – For the first time, astronomers have spotted an exoplanet whose orbit is decaying around an evolved, or older, host star. The stricken world appears destined to spiral closer and ...
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Event Horizon Telescope Makes Highest-Resolution Black Hole Detections from Earth

The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration has conducted test observations achieving the highest resolution ever obtained from the surface of the Earth, by detecting light from the centers of ...
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M87* One Year Later: Proof of a Persistent Black Hole Shadow

CfA astronomers helped lead a study discovering changes in the bright ring around M87's black hole, confirming the theoretical understanding of the variable and turbulent flow of material around black ...