Cambridge, MA - New results from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) collaboration, using the largest 3D map of our universe ever made, have tracked dark energy’s influence over the past ...

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 ...

Matter and energy are the two basic components of the entire Universe. An enormous challenge for scientists is that most of the matter in the Universe is invisible and the source of most of the energy ...

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 ...

Everywhere we point telescopes in the sky, we see galaxies, going back to the earliest moments in history where galaxies could even exist. These galaxies fall into a pattern: the large-scale structure ...

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 ...

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 ...

The observable universe is home to more than a hundred billion galaxies of many shapes and sizes. The most distant galaxies are relics of an earlier era, so observing them is a glimpse at history.

Modern astronomy requires the best telescopes, detectors, spacecraft, and other equipment. The scientists, engineers, and staff of the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian participate in ...

From its establishment in 1966 as the Smithsonian Mount Hopkins Observatory, FLWO has hosted a world-class suite of telescopes designed for a wide variety of purposes. The largest visible-light ...

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 ...

All the atoms and light in the universe together make up less than five percent of the total contents of the cosmos. The rest is composed of dark matter and dark energy, which are invisible but ...