New York Times reporter Dennis Overbye writes about how the TESS satellite has already identified at least 73 stars that might have exoplanets. “TESS is doing great,” says George Ricker, a senior research scientist at MIT who is leading the TESS mission. Ricker adds that the satellite is, “all that we could have wished for!”
The first image captured during the initial orbit of the MIT-developed TESS satellite shows thousands of stars in the Southern Sky, reports Brooks Hays for UPI. “Galaxies, globular clusters and thousands of stars can be found within the portrait of the Southern Sky. Hidden in the image are exoplanets,” writes Hays.
The MIT-developed TESS satellite has sent back its first batch of images of the southern sky from its quest to identify nearby exoplanets, reports writes Chris Ciacci for Fox News. Ciacci notes that the resulting images are “nothing short of incredible.”
Axios reporter Andrew Freeman writes that the TESS satellite has captured its first images of the southern sky. “This swath of the sky’s southern hemisphere includes more than a dozen stars we know have transiting planets based on previous studies from ground observatories,” explains MIT’s George Ricker, TESS’ principal investigator.
Gizmodo reporter Ryan Mandelbaum writes that by studying ancient quasars, MIT scientists have uncovered evidence supporting quantum entanglement, the concept that two particles can become linked despite their distance in space and time. “We’ve outsourced randomness to the furthest quarters of the universe, tens of billions of light years away,” says Prof. David Kaiser.
Space.com reporter Chelsea Gohd writes that MIT researchers have used the light emitted by two ancient quasars to provide evidence of quantum entanglement, the theory that two particles can become linked across space and time. The researchers used ancient quasars to see if, “the correlation between particles can be explained by classical mechanics stemming from earlier than 600 years ago.”
Writing for Motherboard, Daniel Oberhaus highlights how MIT researchers have used light emitted by quasars billions of years ago to confirm the existence of quantum entanglement. Oberhaus explains that the findings suggest entanglement occurs “because if it didn’t exist the universe would somehow have to have ‘known’ 7.8 billion years ago that these MIT scientists would perform these experiments in 2018.”
MIT researchers have discovered hundreds of galaxies that were hidden by light being emitted from a supermassive black hole, reports Kasandra Brabaw for Space.com. “The black hole, a type known as a quasar, sits 2.4 billion light-years from Earth and is so bright that astronomers have assumed it was alone in its area of space for decades,” Brabaw explains.
FOX News reporter James Rogers writes that MIT researchers have detected a new galaxy cluster that had been obscured by the bright light emitted from a supermassive black hole. “Located just 2.4 billion light-years from Earth, the cluster consists of hundreds of individual galaxies,” Rogers explains.
Gizmodo reporter Ryan Mandelbaum highlights how MIT researchers used data from the CLAS particle accelerator and detector to determine that neutron stars are heavily influenced by protons. Prof. Or Hen explains that the findings show that, “protons are much more important in determining the properties of neutron stars than we thought.”
Writing for Space.com, Chelsea Gohd reports that a team of researchers led by Hans Moritz Guenther at MIT’s Kavli Institute has observed a young star devouring a planet. “The researchers hope to get a better idea of what really goes on in the life of a young star and how infant planets manage to survive,” explains Gohd.
Newsweek reporter Aristos Georgiou writes that physicists from MIT and other institutions have observed a star, called RW Aur A, consuming a young planet. Observations made with NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory over a five-year period enabled the finding, explains Georgiou.
Using data on subatomic particles called neutrinos from Antarctica’s IceCube Neutrino Observatory, a team including MIT researchers has determined that Einstein’s theory of special relativity is correct. “Neutrinos had not yet been discovered when Einstein died, but his theory still predicts their behavior,” explains Kimberly Hickok for LiveScience.
In recent weeks, several groups of scientists have proven three of Einstein’s theories, reports Aristos Georgiou of Newsweek. Highlighting a team of researchers led by MIT Prof. Janet Conrad that proved Lorentz symmetry, Georgiou writes that their work “has shown that the great German physicist’s theory of special relativity applies even to tiny, high-energy subatomic particles known as neutrinos.”
Seth Borenstein of the Associated Press reports that astronomers, led by MIT research scientist Hans Mortiz Guenther, believe they may have witnessed a star devouring a young planet. According to computer simulations, the observed “30-fold increase in iron on the edge of the star” and “pronounced dimming” could be the result of planet devouring.