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 TESS satellite has identified two new exoplanets, reports Joey Roulette for Reuters. “We will have to wait and see what else TESS discovers,” says Prof. Sara Seager, who is serving as the TESS deputy science director. “We do know that planets are out there, littering the night sky, just waiting to be found.”
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.
A new study by MIT researchers uncovers evidence that more than a quadrillion tons of diamonds are located in the Earth’s upper mantle, reports Katie Camero for The Boston Globe. Camero explains that, “researchers came to this conclusion after they found in global records over the past few decades a ‘glitch’ in seismic wave activity.”
Prof. Taylor Perron speaks with Boston Globe reporter Martin Finucane about the recent announcement that a lake was detected underneath the surface of Mars. “One of the exciting things about this discovery is that there could be other liquid water pockets like this one,” notes Perron.
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.
A team including MIT research scientist Ulrich Faul has discovered that the Earth’s interior contains 1,000 times more diamonds than was previously thought, writes Sarah Emerson for Motherboard. The researchers believe that one to two percent of “craton roots,” which are the deepest sections of the “rock layers extending upwards of 200 miles through the Earth’s crust and mantle,” may contain diamonds.
MIT researchers have discovered a cache of diamonds below the surface of the Earth, deeper than any drilling expedition has ventured, reports the Agence France-Presse wire. This discovery was made after “scientists were puzzled by observations that sound waves would speed up significantly when passing through the roots of ancient cratons.”
Using “recorded sound waves from seismic activity like earthquakes and tsunamis,” MIT researchers have found that there may be a quadrillion tons of diamonds under the Earth’s surface, reports Sarah Gray for Fortune. The seismic data provided this information, “because the speed of sound waves changes depending on the temperature, density and composition of the earth they travel through,” explains Gray.
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.
MIT research scientist Ulrich Faul used seismic data to determine that there may be diamonds underneath the Earth’s surface. “Located over 100 miles below Earth's tectonic plates are ancient, hard rocks called ‘cratonic roots’ that potentially consist of one to two percent diamond — totaling a quadrillion tons,” writes Lilly Price for USA Today.
A study led by MIT research scientist Ulrich Faul finds that diamonds are about 1,000 times more common in the Earth than previously thought, report Ayana Archie and Ralph Ellis for CNN. “The deposits sit some 90 to 150 miles below the Earth's surface, much deeper than current mining machinery allows,” write Archie and Ellis.