Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory

Science Updates

12/11/2020
Simulating Meteors with ASMODEUS

A meteor is a rocky or metallic body that enters the Earth’s atmosphere (or the atmosphere of another planet) from space at high speed and burns up; meteors that mostly survive the trip and land on the ground are called meteorites.
12/04/2020
Obscured Seyfert Galaxies

Seyfert galaxies are distinguished by their bright nuclei and radiation from highly ionized atoms. Seyferts look much like quasars, but unlike point-like quasars the Seyfert host galaxies are clearly seen.

The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) is a "research institute" of the Smithsonian Institution. It is joined with the Harvard College Observatory (HCO) to form the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA). Because these research activities share Harvard and Smithsonian staff and resources, the links at this website will take you to information posted on the "CfA" pages.