Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, now branded the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, is a research collaboration between the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and the Harvard College Observatory. It was founded in 1973 and today counts over 850 collaborators and support staff. Its funding comes from federal appropriations, university funds, government contracts and grants, and donations. The center states its mission as advancing knowledge of the Universe through research in astronomy and astrophysics, extending that work to related areas of fundamental physics and geophysics. Because it joins a university observatory with a national museum institution's observatory, it is a joint research body and not a space agency in the usual sense, and it belongs in the atlas as a major astronomy research organization.