Understanding climate change requires an understanding of Earth as a planet. The Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) is a joint NASA-NOAA space observatory with two tasks: real-time tracking of ...

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 ...

The results suggest that the earliest steps of star formation may work in a similar way across diverse environments of our galaxy “Using ALMA, we were able to measure the motions of dense gas in the ...

John Huchra California Institute of Technology Before his death in 2010, Dr. Huchra was the Vice Provost for Research Policy at Harvard University and a Professor of Astronomy at the ...

Each week, CfA scientists publish new research across the span of astronomy, astrophysics, astrochemistry, geosciences and engineering. Explore our most cutting-edge work with the descriptions below.

A wide range of astronomical phenomena produce infrared light, from the interstellar dust clouds where new stars are born, to the matter swirling around supermassive black holes. However, many ...

While astronomers have discovered thousands of other worlds orbiting distant stars, our best knowledge about planets, moons, and life comes from one place. The Solar System provides the only known ...

The rural education initiative aims to bring a telescope and astronomy educational materials to all rural schools in the U.S. This spring, the Smithsonian Scientists Taking Astronomy to Rural Schools ...

Certain observations in astronomy require extremely precise measurements of the spectrum of light. In other words, sometimes researchers need to find the colors of light from an astronomical object to ...

The interstellar medium (ISM) is the matter lying between stars, and it contains all the ingredients for new stars and planets. Those ingredients reside in interstellar clouds which form, change shape ...

Venus and Jupiter meet after sunset, the Moon passes in front of Venus, summer begins, and deep-sky treasures rise into view. Planets gather after sunset, the Moon passes in front of Venus, summer ...

Each appointee will receive a copy of an award agreement from the Smithsonian Institution’s Office of Fellowships, outlining the terms of the appointment and the stipend to be offered. A copy should ...