A new study co-authored by Assistant Prof. Salvatore Vitale shows that the collision of a black hole and neutron star could provide insight into how quickly the universe is expanding. One such merger could allow physicists to calculate the expansion rate “as effectively as combining data from 50 different neutron-star collisions,” reports Meghan Bartels for Space.com.
A new paper by Assistant Prof. Salvatore Vitale finds that studying the rare pairing of a neutron star and a spiraling black hole could allow researchers to determine the universe’s rate of expansion, writes Jeremy Fox of The Boston Globe. The positive detection of a collision could “potentially give a dramatic contribution to our understanding of the universe,” says Vitale.
An international research team led by postdoctoral fellow Carl Rodriguez has found that within a group of star clusters, black hole collisions can actually create larger black holes, writes Nola Taylor Redd for Fox News. A simulation showed that these black holes “should grow to be more than 50 times as massive as Earth's sun if they collide with other black holes.”
NASA’s planet-hunting satellite TESS has “snapped its first test shot — an incredibly clear, star-studded image centered on the Southern constellation of Centaurus,” writes Bruce Dorminey for Forbes. “We are truly excited about how well the TESS cameras are working,” said George Ricker, the mission’s principal investigator and a senior research scientist at MIT’s Kavli Institute.
Prof. Sara Seager speaks with Nova Wonders about the hope of finding “some sign of life” with the TESS mission. "We'd like to see methane and other gases,” says Seager. “And some of these, on their own or together, would help make the case for life on another planet.”
NASA’s recently launched Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) “will spend the next two years scanning 200,000 stars looking for any exoplanets orbiting them,” explains New Scientist. In about two months, once the satellite is in orbit and its cameras are tested, “there’ll just be a flood of information,” says MIT’s George Ricker, the principal investigator on TESS.
NASA has successfully launched its “planet-hunting” Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, more than a decade after MIT scientists first proposed the idea of a mission like TESS, reports Ashley Stickland for CNN. “NASA believes that TESS will build on Kepler’s momentum and open the study of exoplanets in unprecedented ways,” writes Strickland.
After launching into space on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, “NASA's newest planet-hunter, the TESS space telescope, will observe roughly 85 percent of the sky to find planets orbiting bright, nearby stars,” writes Jay Bennett of Popular Mechanics. "Never underestimate how ingenious nature actually is," said MIT’s George Ricker, who is the principal investigator on TESS.
The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) will enter an unusual, highly elliptical orbit around the Earth to capture images of about 20,000 new exoplanet candidates, writes Robbie Gonzalez of Wired. "We are setting the stage for the future of exoplanet research—not just for the 21st century, but the 22nd century and beyond," says MIT Kavli Institute senior research scientist George Ricker, leader of the TESS mission.
Loren Grush of The Verge examines the potential findings of NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), which “will stare out at the cosmos searching for never-before-seen worlds” for two years, after launching on April 16. “[W]e’ll have a whole catalog of these planets in an order of priority for follow-up,” says Prof. Sara Seager, deputy science director for TESS.
With the launch of NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite near, Elise Takahama of The Boston Globe spoke with Roland Vanderspek, a principal research scientist at MIT’s Kavli Institute, about the mission. “I’m hoping we get some really beautiful images,” said Vanderspek, “and enable good science all around the world.”
Developed by MIT scientists, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) aims to discover thousands of nearby exoplanets including about 50 Earth-sized ones, reports the Press Trust of India. "We're on this scenic tour of the whole sky, and in some ways we have no idea what we will see. It's like we're making a treasure map," says Natalia Guerrero, technical associate at the Kavli Institute.
An international research team, led by postdoctoral fellow Carl Rodriguez, has found that dense star clusters could be a breeding ground for black holes, writes Elise Takahama for The Boston Globe. These star clusters “can create a new black hole that’s more massive and the new massive one can find itself another companion and potentially merge again,” Rodriguez explains.
With NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, set to launch in less than a week, Jay Bennett of Popular Mechanics speaks with TESS Principal Investigator George Ricker of the MIT Kavli Institute. “TESS is really a finder scope,” says Ricker. “The main thing that we're going to be able to do is find a large sample from which the follow-up observations can be carried out in decades, even centuries to come.”
Research led by Dheeraj Pasham, a postdoc at MIT's Kavli Institute, provides evidence “that black holes feed on passing stars then eject energetic jet streams,” writes Laney Ruckstuhl for The Boston Globe. “Such black hole jet streams can have large implications for the galaxies they enter. Pasham said they can regulate the growth of a galaxy because of their energy levels."