"About a hundred astronomers and visiting scholars gathered in the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics’s Phillips Auditorium to hear about the latest advancements in astrophysics at a Thursday luncheon hosted by the Harvard-based Institute for Theory and Computation."

Harvard Crimson: http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/2/2/astrophysics-luncheon-talk/

The Astronomy Department will be posting photos and videos from trips across the US to view the eclipse of August 21, 2017. Check this page for updates: https://astronomy.fas.harvard.edu/great-american-eclipse-2017

Image: D. Finkbeiner

Congratulations to Astronomy graduate student, Xiawei Wang, was selected as one of the eight Harvard Horizons scholars. The symposium will take place on Wednesday, April 12, 2017 at 4:30PM in Sanders theater.
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Harvard Graduate student Marion Dierickx recent paper featured:

"The 11 farthest known stars in our galaxy are located about 300,000 light-years from Earth, well outside the Milky Way's spiral disk. New research by Harvard astronomers shows that half of those stars might have been ripped from another galaxy: the Sagittarius dwarf. Moreover, they are members of a lengthy stream of stars extending one million light-years across space, or 10 times the width of our galaxy."

Read more at: ...

Watch White House Fellow and Harvard Astronomy Graduate Student Anjali Tripathi's featured TED talk entitled "Why Earth May Someday Look like Mars"

http://www.ted.com/talks/anjali_tripathi_why_earth_may_someday_look_like_mars

Congratulations to Munazza Alam, Harvard graduate student in astronomy & astrophysics, for being selected as a National Geographic Young Explorer! Learn more about this extraordinary researcher in her online interview.

Read More: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/10/munazza-alam-explorer-moments-dwarf-stars/

Harvard graduate student and astrophysicist Anjali Tripathi has been named a White House Fellow for 2016-17. She is one of 16 Fellows selected from more than 1,000 applicants.  Tripathi's biography and additional information are in the White House announcement.   CFA press release: https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/news/fe201620

Other press coverage:...

Harvard Astronomy Graduate Student Yuan-Sen Ting has been selected for the Dr. Pliny A. and Margaret H. Price Prize in Cosmology and AstroParticle Physics. 

... Read more about Yuan-Sen Ting awarded Dr. Pliny A. and Margaret H. Price Prize in Cosmology and AstroParticle Physics

View a television interview with Avi Loeb on the Breakthrough Starshot Initiative, a project to visit the nearest star system, Alpha Centauri, that some of our students and postdocs are involved in.

http://www.newtv.org/video/innovation-showcase/Breakthrough-Starshot-Initiative/

Astronomers announced today that they have found the organic molecule methyl alcohol, or methanol, in the TW Hydrae protoplanetary disk. This is the first such detection of this chemical compound in a young planet-forming disk. Because methanol forms on the icy coatings of small dust grains, this discovery provides a window into the region where comets likely are forming. 

Read More: https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/news/2016-13

"Our Earth consists of silicate rocks and an iron core with a thin veneer of water and life. But the first potentially habitable worlds to form might have been very different. New research suggests that planet formation in the early universe might have created carbon planets consisting of graphite, carbides, and diamond. Astronomers might find these diamond worlds by searching a rare class of stars.

"'This work shows that even stars with a tiny fraction of the carbon in our solar system can host planets,' says lead author and Harvard University graduate student Natalie Mashian....

The graduate student retreat was a success again this year!  Roughly 20 students participated (including 5 first-years) in a day trip to Salem, MA.  Students explored Salem, visited the Friendship ship, went kayaking, paddle boarding, and fishing.  At the end of the day, they gathered for an outdoor barbecue with a beautiful view of the harbor. 

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