Magnetic fields play an important but poorly understood role in the formation and evolution of stars -- important because magnetic fields stretch around a hot medium like a rubber band an...

Cambridge, MA On long, dark winter nights, the constellation of Orion the Hunter dominates the sky. Within the Hunter’s sword, the Orion Nebula swaddles a cluster of newborn stars called...

Astronomers have found that complex molecules, including organic species, exist in numerous kinds of places in the cosmos, especially in the giant molecular clouds of gas and dust where n...

The CfA announces a symposium celebrating Giovanni Fazio and his long and distinguished career of research, discovery, and teaching on the occasion of his 75th birthday. Two full days of ...

Cambridge, MA Processes that laid the foundation for life on Earth -- star and planet formation and the production of complex organic molecules in interstellar space -- are yielding thei...

There are currently 340 known extra-solar planets (planets orbiting other stars). These planets range from one as small as only 1.7 earth-masses to a few dozen with masses ten to twenty t...

Nearly all galaxies are thought to have massive black holes at their nuclei, containing millions or even billions of solar masses of material. The size, structure, and physical propertie...

Astronomer Alicia Soderberg has been awarded the 2009 Annie Jump Cannon Award by the American Astronomical Society "for outstanding research and promise for future research." This award i...

Carbon is the fourth most abundant element in the universe, and an essential constituent of life. Atomic carbon is also a critical component in the giant gas clouds that populate galaxies...

Oxygen is the third most abundant element in the universe (after hydrogen and helium). It is therefore thought to be an important constituent of the clouds of gas and dust from which new ...