2013

Faculty and post-docs prevail over students in annual ITC Soccer Cup match

Faculty and post-docs prevail over students in annual ITC Soccer Cup match

August 14, 2013

The faculty and post-docs extended their winning streak in a spectacular regulation soccer match (7:3) at the annual ITC picnic on August 11th at Harvard's athletic grounds.  Pictured below, ITC Director Avi Loeb is double-teamed by students Doug Ferrer and Sukrit Ranjan with Fernando Becerra looking on.   Avi was credited with two goals and had two assists.... Read more about Faculty and post-docs prevail over students in annual ITC Soccer Cup match

Gamma-ray burst illuminates invisible galaxy in the "dark ages"

Gamma-ray burst illuminates invisible galaxy in the "dark ages"

August 7, 2013

More than 12 billion years ago a star exploded, ripping itself apart and blasting its remains outward in twin jets at nearly the speed of light. At its death it glowed so brightly that it outshone its entire galaxy by a million times.  Associate Professor Edo Berger and Ryan Chornock, a scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, were able to gear up quickly to collect data on it's afterglow just hours after it was detected by NASA's Swift spacecraft on June 6th.

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Graduate students help organize premier conference on scientific communication

Graduate students help organize premier conference on scientific communication

July 13, 2013

A group of graduate students, including six from the Harvard Department of Astronomy, developed and organized Communicating Science 2013, or “ComSciCon 2013”, a first-of-its kind workshop on science communication specifically for grad students in the sciences and engineering. ComSciCon brought together graduate students from across the country and from a wide range of scientific disciplines to the Microsoft NERD center in Cambridge on June 13-15. These 50 attendees were selected from a pool of 730 applicants based on their enthusiasm for and achievements in communicating science.

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Congratulations Class of 2013!

Congratulations Class of 2013!

June 4, 2013

Congratulations to all our 2013 graduates in Astronomy.  Pictured below are the five graduates who attended the May 30th degree-awarding ceremony.  In addition, Lauranne Lanz and Diego Munoz will be completing their degree requirements in August.  Along with the four concentrators from Harvard College who also graduated in May - David Abaca, Caroline Huang, Samuel Meyer, Corinne Tu - we wish all of you the best. <--break->Pictured from left to right...

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Exoplanet discovered with new technique that uses Einstein's relativity

May 14, 2013


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/

Time Magazine: http://science.time.com/2013/06/04/albert-einstein-discovers-new-planet-really/

Water worlds surface Planets covered by global ocean with no land in sight

April 25, 2013


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

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