The most luminous galaxies in the universe radiate a thousand times the energy of the Milky Way (or even more), most of it at infrared wavelengths. These galaxies are powered by the ultra...

Cambridge, MA - Despite years of effort, diversifying the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) remains a challenge. In fact, in 2019, underrepresented minorit...

Large amounts of gas are sometimes funneled to a galaxy's nuclear regions, with profound consequences. The gas triggers starburst activity and can also feed the supermassive black hole, c...

Over 4300 exoplanets have been detected to date, over ninety percent of them by using the transit or radial velocity techniques. Of the other ten percent, 105 were found using the microle...

Test Calendar

Stars greater than about eight solar-masses end their lives spectacularly as supernovae. These single-star supernovae are called core collapse supernovae because their dense cores, compos...

Cambridge, MA - Astronomers using data from NASA and the ESA (European Space Agency) telescopes have released a new all-sky map of the outermost region of our galaxy. Known as the galacti...

A core focus of SAO's work as a Smithsonian research unit is to serve the American public through a commitment to cutting-edge scientific research and provide free and equitable access to...

Stars form as gravity contracts the gas and dust in an interstellar cloud until cores develop that are dense enough to coalesce into stars. A dense core in the earliest phase of this proc...

Cambridge, MA - In April 2019, scientists released the first image of a black hole in galaxy M87 using the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT). However, that remarkable achievement was jus...