The heliosphere is the bubble-like cavity around the Sun, created by the solar wind, that extends well beyond Pluto until the pressure of the interstellar medium ultimately terminates it....

Cambridge, MA - VERITAS Collaboration have measured the angular diameter of stars using Stellar Intensity Interferometry for the first time in nearly 50 years, and demonstrated both impro...

Don Quixote (alias Near-Earth Object NEO 3552) was discovered in 1983.  Subsequent infrared and optical observations measured its diameter as about 18.7 kilometers, making it the thi...

Have you been working from home the past few months? Most of the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard and Smithsonian staff has, too—but not everyone! To ensure that our critical research co...

A blazar is a galaxy whose central nucleus is bright across the spectrum, from low energy radio wavelengths to the high energy gamma rays like those observed by the Fermi Gamma Ray Space ...

Cambridge, MA - Scientists at Harvard University and the Black Hole Initiative (BHI) have developed a new method to find black holes in the outer solar system, and along with it, determin...

Polarized light is a familiar phenomenon because the scattering or reflection of light results in one of its two components being preferentially absorbed. The majority of sunlight on Eart...

A maser, like a laser, is a source of bright, monochromatic electromagnetic radiation, with the difference being that maser radiation is not optical light but rather longer wavelength mic...

Cambridge, MA - Scientists at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian and the University of Rochester are collaborating on a project to search the universe for signs of li...

A black hole, at least in our current understanding, is characterized by having "no hair," that is, it is so simple that it can be completely described by just three parameters, its mass,...