David Charbonneau, Harvard Astronomy, was one of five faculty selected as Harvard College Professors, a five-year appointment that provides them with extra support for research or scholarly activities.

Read More: http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2016/05/five-named-harvard-college-professors/

Prof. Edo Berger has been named one of the winners of the third annual Star Family Challenge for Promising Scientific Research, a faculty research award program established at the suggestion of James A. Star ’83. The Star Family Challenge provides seed funding for high-risk, high-impact projects in the natural and social sciences.

Astronomer explains plan to send tiny spaceships to Alpha Centauri

"A group of astronomers and technology entrepreneurs has announced an audacious plan to send a fleet of tiny spaceships traveling at a fifth the speed of light to the nearest star, Alpha Centauri. 

"The plan would see humankind leap out of the solar system with the aid of an ultralight vessel made of what are essentially cellphone components and a thin, reflective light sail propelled by an enormous array of Earth-based lasers. 

Read full interview with Avi Loeb. 

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On April 2, twelve students of the advanced undergraduate lab course Astro191 along with Prof. John Kovac (course head), Prof. Josh Grindlay, Teaching Fellow Tyler St. Germaine, and other enthusiastic friends from the CfA community traveled to Holmdel, NJ to the Bell Labs facilities where radio astronomy was "discovered" by Karl Jansky in 1932 and where fossil radiation from the Big Bang, the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), was first detected in 1965.  The visit was hosted by Nobel laureate Bob Wilson (now at the CfA) who described the history and...