Astronomy and astrophysics

The MIT Haystack Observatory houses a specialized supercomputer called a correlator, which crunched data generated by the EHT project.

Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics awarded to Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration for black hole observation

Nearly 30 MIT-affiliated researchers will share in the prize, while David Jay Julius ’77 wins Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences; assistant professor of physics Max Metlitski shares New Horizons prize with Xie Chen PhD ’12 and Michael Levin PhD ’06.

September 6, 2019

The asteroid 6478 Gault is seen with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, showing two narrow, comet-like tails of debris that tell us that the asteroid is slowly undergoing self-destruction. The bright streaks surrounding the asteroid are background stars. The Gault asteroid is located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.

For first time, astronomers catch asteroid in the act of changing color

Asteroid is likely shedding reddish dust, revealing a fresh, blue surface beneath.

August 29, 2019

Artist’s rendering of the surface of LHS 3844b, a planet that has been found to have no atmosphere.

Rocky, Earth-sized exoplanet is missing an atmosphere

Study reports on search for an atmosphere around a planet somewhat similar to ours.

August 19, 2019

Associate professor Tracy Slatyer focuses on searching through telescope data for signals of mysterious phenomena such as dark matter, the invisible stuff that makes up more than 80 percent of the matter in the universe but has only been detected through its gravitational pull. In her teaching, she seeks to draw out and support a new and diverse crop of junior scientists.

Data-mining for dark matter

Tracy Slatyer hunts through astrophysical data for clues to the invisible universe.

August 15, 2019

The Lorelei Ensemble performs in "Songs from Extrasolar Spaces: Music Inspired by TESS" on July 30 in MIT's Kresge Auditorium.

The music of the spheres

MIT hosts "Songs from Extrasolar Spaces," a musical melding of art and science inspired by the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS).

August 9, 2019

An example of an interstellar collisionless shock is seen in this photo of a bow shock in the Orion Nebula.

Astrophysical shock phenomena reproduced in the laboratory

Lab-scale experiment could help scientists understand interstellar and galactic-scale smashups.

August 6, 2019

This infographic illustrates key features of the TOI 270 system, located about 73 light-years away in the southern constellation Pictor.

TESS discovers three new planets nearby, including temperate “sub-Neptune”

Planetary system orbiting an unusually quiet star is ideal for future habitability searches.

July 29, 2019

Artemis searches the Northern Hemisphere sky for exoplanets.

3Q: Julien de Wit on searching for red worlds in the northern skies

MIT has completed the installation of its newest exoplanet-hunting telescope, Artemis, in the Canary Islands, joining the SPECULOOS network.

June 20, 2019

Rana Ezzeddine and Anna Frebel of MIT have observed evidence that the first stars in the universe exploded as asymmetric supernova, strong enough to scatter heavy elements such as zinc across the early universe.

Explosions of universe’s first stars spewed powerful jets

Instead of ballooning into spheres, as once thought, early supernovae ejected jets that may have seeded new stars.

May 8, 2019

An artist’s illustration of two colliding neutron stars.

LIGO and Virgo detect neutron star smash-ups

Findings reported just weeks into the network’s latest operating run. (Press release)

May 2, 2019

Salvatore Vitale, assistant professor of physics at MIT and member of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration

3 Questions: Salvatore Vitale on LIGO’s latest detections

“We will keep listening for these faint and remote cosmic whispers,” says the physics professor.

May 2, 2019

New technology allows LIGO researchers to model noise from quantum phenomena at room temperature. The green path shows the optical fiber that carries light into the chamber, and the red path shows where the light exits.

Quantum measurement could improve gravitational wave detection sensitivity

Research could enable a new suite of experiments to measure quantum activity at room temperature.

May 1, 2019

NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), shown here in a conceptual illustration, will identify exoplanets orbiting the brightest stars just outside our solar system.

TESS discovers its first Earth-sized planet

Orbiting a nearby star, the new planet is the smallest identified so far by the TESS mission.

April 16, 2019

The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) is a global network of radio telescopes that work together as one virtual, Earth-sized telescope, with a resolution sharp enough to “see” a black hole’s shadow.

Astronomers capture first image of a black hole

ESO, ALMA, and APEX contribute to paradigm-shifting observations of the gargantuan black hole at the heart of the galaxy Messier 87. (Press release)

April 10, 2019

The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) — a planet-scale array of eight ground-based radio telescopes forged through international collaboration — was designed to capture images of a black hole. In coordinated press conferences across the globe, EHT researchers revealed that they succeeded, unveiling the first direct visual evidence of the supermassive black hole in the center of Messier 87 and its ...

Working together as a “virtual telescope,” observatories around the world produce first direct images of a black hole

Images reveal supermassive black hole at the heart of the Messier 87 galaxy.