Artist's conception of Kepler-76b,
orbiting its elongated star
David A. Aguilar (CfA)

A new method for detecting planet that Loeb & Gaudi proposed in 2003 was demonstrated to work and a new planet, Kepler 76b, was discovered with it.

Read More:

Wired UK: http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-05/14/planet-discovery-method

CFA Press Release: http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/news/2013/pr201312.html

Tel Aviv University: http://english.tau.ac.il/news/discovering_new_planet

Harvard Gazette: http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2013/05/building-on-einstein/

Illustration courtesy of CfA

Astronomers have found a planetary system orbiting the star Kepler-62. This five-planet system has two worlds in the habitable zone — the distance from their star at which they receive enough light and warmth for liquid water to theoretically exist on their surfaces.

Harvard Gazette

Photograph by Jim Harrison

Avi Loeb and Charles Alcock

Read an interesting article about the Giant
Magellan Telescope, published in the Harvard Magazine online.

The online version is here:
http://harvardmagazine.com/2013/05/seeing-stars

The PDF file of the article can be found at:
http://harvardmag.com/pdf/2013/05-pdfs/0513-32.pdf

Kris Snibbe/Harvard Staff Photographer

Stars align at astronomy reunion: Event draws researchers from around the world.

Left: Ruth Murray-Clay (from left), David Latham, Sara Seager, David Charbonneau, and moderator Charles Alcock were some of the faculty and alumni of the Astronomy Department that recently reunited for a luncheon, panel discussions, and evening reception.

Harvard Gazette Article

Harvard Astronomy's Supernova Forensics group has teamed up with Astronomy 100 undergraduate students to unveil the nature of the peculiar SN2012au - a massive star that exploded some 75 million years ago.  This energetic, slow-evolving and helium-rich explosion provides a golden link between the emerging class of "super-luminous" supernovae and other more seemingly normal supernovae that are far less bright.

Some observations of the supernova were obtained by two generations of Astro 100 students in 2012 and 2013 as part of the department's annual Spring Break trip to Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory in Arizona. Students were the first to classify the new supernova in 2012 with the FLWO 1.5m telescope within just hours of its discovery by the Catalina Sky Survey.  A year later, the next group of students used the FLWO 1.2m telescope to show that SN2012au is still shining bright and thus evolving slowly.  A paper led by postdoc, Dan Milisavljevic, has been submitted to the Astrophysical Journal Letters with details on this unusual stellar explosion (link).

Article in Harvard Crimson

Astronomy Department Chair Avi Loeb discussed the findings from the European Space Agency’s Planck satellite program that showed the universe as being a little older, containing a bit more mysterious dark matter, and expanding more slowly than previously thought.

Read this article in the Harvard Gazette that features Avi Loeb.

Harvard Gazette: Tweaking the Universe