How can we expand the limits of human knowledge further into the unknown? The Center for Astrophysics is a collaboration between the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and Harvard College ...

Looking for hidden structures and unusual stars that reveal the Milky Way’s history. Since our galaxy grew by merging with and eating other galaxies, traces of that violent past are visible in the ...

Capturing the first image of a supermassive black hole using the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT). This image of the black hole at the center of the nearby galaxy M87 reveals how gravitation affects the ...

For the first 380,000 years or so after the Big Bang, the entire universe was a hot soup of particles and photons, too dense for light to travel very far. However, as the cosmos expanded, it cooled ...

Using new computational algorithms, scientists have measured a sharp ring of light predicted to originate from photons whipping around the back of a supermassive black hole. Cambridge, MA – When ...

Mapping the structure of galaxy clusters using the hot plasma that fills the space between galaxies. Even though this plasma’s density is low, its temperature can reach hundreds of millions of degrees ...

The Milky Way is our galactic home, part of the story of how we came to be. Astronomers have learned that it’s a large spiral galaxy, similar to many others, but also different in ways that reflect ...

When stars die, their fate is determined by how massive they were in life. Stars like our Sun leave behind white dwarfs: Earth-size remnants of the original star’s core. More massive stars explode as ...

Everything you’ve ever seen or experienced on Earth was once a nebulous collection of floating gas and dust. Science is starting to understand how those particles came to take the forms you recognize ...

The Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA) hosts a variety of free programs for the public. Among these events are Observatory Nights, sponsored by the Harvard College Observatory, ...

About 13.8 billion years ago, the Big Bang gave rise to everything, everywhere, and everywhen—the entire known Universe. What caused the Big Bang? What happened that first moment at the beginning of ...

Most of the atoms in the universe are either hydrogen or helium, formed within the first few minutes after the Big Bang. The other elements are mostly made by nuclear fusion in stars, especially ...