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.
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.
LIGO and Virgo detect neutron star smash-ups
Findings reported just weeks into the network’s latest operating run. (Press release)
3 Questions: Salvatore Vitale on LIGO’s latest detections
“We will keep listening for these faint and remote cosmic whispers,” says the physics professor.
Quantum measurement could improve gravitational wave detection sensitivity
Research could enable a new suite of experiments to measure quantum activity at room temperature.
TESS discovers its first Earth-sized planet
Orbiting a nearby star, the new planet is the smallest identified so far by the TESS mission.
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)
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.
3 Questions: Lisa Barsotti on the new and improved LIGO
“If we are very lucky, we might observe something new … or maybe even something totally unexpected.”
Dark matter experiment finds no evidence of axions
In its first run, ABRACADABRA detects no signal of the hypothetical dark matter particle within a specific mass range.
Lighting up exoplanets
The Heising-Simons Foundation selects Clara Sousa-Silva and Benjamin Rackham for 51 Pegasi b Fellowships at MIT.
MIT celebrates 50th anniversary of historic moon landing
Symposium featuring former astronauts and other Apollo mission luminaries examines the program’s legacy.
MIT’s REXIS and Bennu’s watery surface
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx sample-return spacecraft, carrying MIT instrument, arrived at asteroid in December; now begins the science to select a sampling location.
3Q: On the significance of Ultima Thule
New Horizons Mission Team members Alissa Earle and Richard Binzel discuss the revelations the icy world provides about the formation of our solar system.
Robert Simcoe named director of MIT Kavli Institute
An expert in instrumentation and early universe observations, Simcoe succeeds Jacqueline Hewitt as head of MIT’s Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research.