Featured series 
Tag: Harvard College Observatory (HCO)
-
Nation & World
Global warming is not so hot
Scientists at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics took a look at how weather has changed in the past 1,000 years. They looked at studies of changes in glaciers, corals, stalagmites,…
-
Nation & World
Astronomers link gamma-ray bursts, supernovae
Gamma-ray bursts are incredibly bright flashes of high-energy radiation that likely signal the birth of black holes. Bursts occur at random locations scattered across the sky, and few last more…
-
Nation & World
Cool X-ray disk points to new type of black hole
Black holes are objects so dense and with a gravitational potential so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape the pull if it ventures too close. Black holes are…
-
Nation & World
Harvard science historian publishes results of unprecedented 30-year census of Copernican masterpiece
First published in 1543, Nicholas Copernicus’ De revolutionibus orbium coelestium introduced the world to the concept of a sun-centered universe. In it, Copernicus detailed how the motions of the sun,…
-
Nation & World
From cradle to grave
Astronomers have been using the Chandra X-ray Observatory and radio telescopes to observe two opposing jets of high-energy particles emitted following an outburst, first detected in 1998 by NASA’s Rossi…
-
Nation & World
X-ray arcs tell tale of giant eruption
Scientists from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) report that two arc-like structures of multimillion-degree gas in the galaxy Centaurus A appear to be part of a ring 25,000 light…
-
Nation & World
Even stars use sunscreen!
Mira variable stars are named after the red giant star Mira (omicron Ceti) in the constellation Cetus the Whale. Variable stars brighten, then dim, then brighten again. While astronomers have…
-
Nation & World
Chandra finds ghosts of eruption in galaxy cluster
Astronomers using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory recently discovered relics of an ancient eruption that tore through a cluster of galaxies. The discovery implies that galaxy clusters are the sites of…
-
Nation & World
Chandra captures Venus in a whole new light
Researchers using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory have made the first X-ray images of Venus, Earth’s sister planet.
-
Nation & World
Chandra probes nature of dark matter
It’s one of the universe’s most enduring mysteries — what comprises the “dark matter” that scientists believe most of the universe is made of, but which humans have been unable…
-
Nation & World
Chandra examines a quadrillion-volt pulsar
A pulsar is a rapidly spinning neutron star that emits massive amounts of radiation in rapid pulses that occur at regular intervals. A neutron star is created when the central…
-
Nation & World
Chandra catches Milky Way monster snacking
Researchers using the Chandra X-ray Observatory have, for the first time, observed the black hole at the center of our galaxy devouring material.
-
Nation & World
Chandra sees wealth of black holes in star-forming galaxies
Three independent teams of research scientists, including one from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, used NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory to find what they suspect are groups of mid-mass black holes…
-
Nation & World
Chandra reveals nest of tight binaries in dense cluster
Observations from a scientific team at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics have revealed that an incredibly dense star cluster known as 47 Tucanae includes many binary stars. Most of the…
-
Nation & World
Chandra pinpoints edge of accretion disk around black hole
An object known as XTE J1118+480 is a black hole roughly seven times the mass of our Sun. XTE J1118+480 is locked in a close binary orbit with a Sun-like…
-
Nation & World
Gamma-ray astronomers detect “extreme” galaxies
Gamma rays from X-ray emitting galaxies seem to signal the existence of what astronomers are calling “extreme” galaxies. An international team of astrophysicists made the discovery of very-high-energy gamma rays,…
-
Nation & World
Dark night sky tells us about structure and formation of solar system
The darkness of the night sky is one of astronomy’s great puzzles. An infinite universe uniformly filled with stars and galaxies should produce an infinitely bright night sky, Johannes Kepler…
-
Nation & World
Chandra X-ray Observatory helps put pieces together on gamma-ray bursts
Astronomers have long debated how gamma-ray bursts (or “GRBs”) originate. One theory contends that GRBs result when two “compact objects,” that is, neutron stars or black holes, collide and coalesce.…
-
Nation & World
Chandra clinches case for missing-link black hole
Using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, scientists have zeroed in on a mid-mass black hole in the galaxy M82. This black hole – located 600 light years away from the center…
-
Nation & World
Cosmic ‘superbubbles’ bespeak toil and trouble
The merging Antennae Galaxies in constellation Corvus are producing massive bubbles of expanding X-ray-emitting gas at such astonishing rates that they are bumping into each other. Giuseppina Fabbiano, Andreas Zezas…
-
Nation & World
Chandra discovers elusive ‘hot bubble’ in planetary nebula
A planetary nebula (so called because it looks like a planet when viewed with a small telescope) is formed when a dying red giant star puffs off its outer layer,…
-
Nation & World
Cosmic pressure fronts mapped by Chandra
The collision of two giant clusters of galaxies has been imaged by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. For the first time, the pressure fronts in this system, which has been compared…
-
Nation & World
Chandra finds “cool” black hole at heart of Andromeda Galaxy
A team of scientists from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass., reported that the gas funneling into a supermassive black hole in the heart of the Andromeda Galaxy,…
-
Nation & World
Betelgeuse’s chromosphere beats like a human heart
For many years astronomers have known that the atmospheres of pulsating stars either expand or contract over time, but they have long puzzled over the question: “What physical mechanism drives…