Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics (CIERA) logo

Massive stars end their lives in powerful explosions (supernovae) that span a wide range of energies and properties. The most powerful of these are the appropriately named Superluminous Supernovae (SLSNe). As SLSNe are so bright and energetic, we can see them out to great distances in the universe, and they could prove to be very

Gallery of Andromeda Star Clusters from Andromeda Project Catalog

Hubble Image Mosaic of Andromeda, based on PHAT survey data. This image, captured with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, is the largest and sharpest image ever taken of the Andromeda galaxy, otherwise known as M31. You would need more than 600 HD television screens to display the whole image. It is the biggest Hubble image

“Hot Jupiters” are Jupiter-like planets with orbits close to their host star. Their origins are debated, and some young planetary system may even host multiple Hot Jupiters. Here, we investigate a planetary system of two Hot Jupiters orbiting a Sun-like star. The system is born on the edge of instability, and over time, the planets’

In late 2015, LIGO discovered gravitational waves emitted by two black holes (each with a mass of about 30 times that of our Sun) that spiraled together and merged about 1.5 billion years ago. Astrophysicists are now debating which is the most likely mechanism that can bring two black holes like those observed so close

Here we show the evolution of a Milky Way-like galaxy over time. The top row shows the galaxy as it would appear today, the middle 3.5 billion years ago, and the bottom almost 10 billion years ago. Columns give different views of the same snapshot in time, leftmost is the mock view through the Hubble

A screenshot from Firefly, an interactive, web-based, and publicly available particle visualization platform created by Aaron Geller and Alex Gurvich. Shown here is a snapshot in time from a simulation of a Milky Way-like galaxy with the stars in blue, the gas in red, and the dark matter in yellow. In the real universe the gas

Marked on this ALMA image are the locations and orientations of 11 gas outflows, which look like the bipolar lobes made by young protostars. These outflows are all within about 3 light-years of our galaxy’s supermassive black hole, marked with a star. Outflow #1 has the most obvious structure; the rest don’t show up well

This collection of images shows gas swirling around the same galaxy in several different ways. Taken together, the columns create a time-lapse projection. The top row shows the density of gas in the galaxy at a given time: in these panels, the brightest areas show where gas is most densely concentrated. In the middle row,

Still image from a simulation of black holes inside a globular cluster. Learn more and view movies here.

Most stars are born together in families of hundreds to thousands, known as star clusters. Over time, the pull of gravity from the galaxy can overcome the gravitational bond holding the family of stars together, shredding the star cluster apart. In this image, the lines show the paths of individual stars in a computer model

Gas-rich “proto-planetary” disks surround young, still forming stars, feeding them through accretion of dust and gas. These are the birthplaces of planetary systems. This image shows a simulation of a possible gas disk progenitor for the real exoplanetary system HR8799. Today, HR8799 has four, six-Jupiter-mass planets, 30 million years into their lives, surrounded by a

Binary systems are star systems comprising two stars orbiting around their common center of mass in a Keplerian orbit, which means that the two components are bound together by their mutual gravitational attraction. In this image, the binary system consists of a main sequence star like our sun, and a neutron star 1.4 times more