The evolution of a star depends crucially on its initial birth mass and composition, and developments in its early lifetime. These initial properties determine, for example, the producti...

Einstein's general theory of relativity predicts that accelerating masses should radiate gravity waves in a roughly similar way that accelerating electrical charges radiate electromagneti...

On October 6-8, 2014, the Smithsonian Institution and the Giant Magellan Telescope Organization will host a three-day conference to improve our understanding of time-domain astrophysics a...

There are now about 1750 confirmed exoplanets, and several thousand candidates awaiting follow-up measurements. Most of them have been discovered by the Kepler satellite which looks for p...

Cambridge, MA - New data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory offer a glimpse into the environment of a star before it exploded earlier this year, and insight into what triggered one ...

Over the vast, empty reaches of interstellar space, countless small molecules tumble quietly though the cold vacuum. Forged in the fusion furnaces of ancient stars and ejected into space ...

Galaxies are often found in groups or clusters, the largest known aggregations of matter and dark matter. The Milky Way, for example, is a member of the "Local Group" of about three doze...

The center of our Milky Way galaxy is located about twenty-five thousand light years from Earth, in the direction of the constellation of Sagittarius. It is invisible to us in optical lig...

More than a decade after competing groups set out to raise money for gargantuan telescopes that could study planets around distant stars and tune into the birth of galaxies at the dawn of...

A globular cluster is a roughly spherical ensemble of stars, as many as several million of them, gravitationally bound together in groups whose diameters can be as small as only tens of l...