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Black Holes

Black holes are some of the most fascinating and mind-bending objects in the cosmos. The very thing that characterizes a black hole also makes it hard to study: its intense gravity. All the mass in a ...
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Astronomers Discover New Building Blocks of Complex Organic Matter

The element carbon is a building block for life, both on Earth and potentially elsewhere in the vast reaches of space. There should be a lot of carbon in space, but surprisingly, it's not always easy ...
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Astronomers Unveil Strong Magnetic Fields Spiraling at the Edge of Milky Way’s Central Black Hole

CfA astronomers led two new EHT studies that have produced the first polarized light image of the supermassive black hole at the heart of the Milky Way Galaxy. Cambridge, MA--A new image from the ...
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Alien Planet Found Spiraling to its Doom around an Aging Star

Cambridge, Mass. – For the first time, astronomers have spotted an exoplanet whose orbit is decaying around an evolved, or older, host star. The stricken world appears destined to spiral closer and ...
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The Tilt in our Stars: The Shape of the Milky Way's Halo of Stars is Realized

New data throws out the textbook picture of a spherical stellar halo and reinforces a dynamic origin story of two galaxies that collided billions of years ago. Cambridge, Mass. – A new study has ...
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AI Helps Astronomers Discover a New Type of Supernova

Astronomers have discovered what may be a massive star exploding while trying to swallow a black hole, offering an explanation for one of the strangest supernovae ever seen. Cambridge, MA - ...
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Ready for its Close-up: New Technology Sharpens Images of Black Holes

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 ...
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Event Horizon Telescope Makes Highest-Resolution Black Hole Detections from Earth

The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration has conducted test observations achieving the highest resolution ever obtained from the surface of the Earth, by detecting light from the centers of ...
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Mystery Solved: Dust Cloud Led to Betelgeuse's 'Great Dimming'

The star Betelgeuse became visibly darker in 2019 and 2020, puzzling astronomers. New images show that the star was partially concealed by a cloud of dust, solving the mystery of the "Great Dimming" ...
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Astronomers Discover Rare Distant Object in Sync with Neptune

This object, called 2020 VN40, is the first confirmed body that orbits the sun once for every ten orbits Neptune completes. Cambridge, MA — A team of astronomers led by the Center for Astrophysics | ...
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Astronomers May Have Discovered the First Planet Outside of Our Galaxy

Until now, astronomers have found all other known exoplanets and exoplanet candidates in the Milky Way galaxy, almost all less than about 3,000 light-years from Earth. Cambridge, MA-- Signs of a ...
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Scientists Make First-Ever Detection of Mid-IR Flares in Sgr A*

An international team of scientists, including multiple astronomers from CfA, have made the first-ever detection of a mid-IR flare from Sgr A*. National Harbor, MD - Using the James Webb Space ...