Cambridge, MA - When astronomers study protoplanetary disks of gas and dust that surround young stars, they sometimes spot a dark gap like the Cassini division in Saturn's rings. It ha...

A black hole is so simple (at least in traditional theories) that it can be completely described by just three parameters: its mass, its spin, and its electric charge. Even though it may...

Massive young stars are known to emit strong X-rays. Unlike the X-ray emission from lower mass stars, however, which arises in stellar photospheres, the X-rays from massive stars are thou...

Cambridge, MA - The Death Star of the movie Star Wars may be fictional, but planetary destruction is real. Astronomers announced today that they have spotted a large, rocky object disi...

Astronomers estimate that at the time the Solar system formed, its proto-planetary disk contained the equivalent of about twenty Jupiter-masses of gas and dust. This so-called "minimum m...

Dr. Sarah Ballard, now at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has been named one of the 2015 Women in Science Fellows by L'Oreal USA. This award honors female scientists at critica...

Near Earth Objects (NEOs) are asteroids or comets whose orbits sometimes bring them close to the Earth, thereby posing a potentially threat. The asteroid that struck Chelyabinsk last year...

Cambridge, MA - Archives, in their many forms, save information from today that people will want to access and study in the future. This is a critical function of all archives, but it ...

The University of Arizona celebrates the newly renamed Richard F. Caris Mirror Lab, part of Steward Observatory and the College of Science, and casts the fourth of the Giant Magellan Tele...

The nucleus of an active galaxy contains a massive black hole that is vigorously accreting material. In the process, the nucleus typically ejects jets of rapidly moving charged particles...