Professor and astrophysicist Sara Seager appointed officer to the Order of Canada
Pioneer in exoplanet research helped transform the burgeoning field into one of the fastest-growing and most exciting in space science.
3 Questions: Rona Oran and Benjamin Weiss on the ancient moon’s missing magnetism
Simulations rule out plasmas caused by meteoroid impacts as the source of lunar magnetism, supporting the proposal that the ancient moon generated a core dynamo.
Four astronauts with ties to MIT named to NASA’s Artemis team
Artemis program will focus on returning humans to the moon.
A technique to sift out the universe’s first gravitational waves
Identifying primordial ripples would be key to understanding the conditions of the early universe.
Field geology at a distance
As part of NASA’s Mars 2020 mission, Professor Tanja Bosak helps determine the best samples to bring home for clues about life 4 billion years ago.
Lincoln Laboratory is designing a payload to integrate on Japanese satellites
The US will provide sensors to be hosted on board regional navigation satellites that Japan is developing.
Pulling the secrets of dark matter out of a hat
Grad student Chiara Salemi and Professor Lindley Winslow use the ABRACADABRA instrument to reveal insights into dark matter.
3 Questions: Using fabric to “listen” to space dust
Fabric samples are headed to the International Space Station for resiliency testing; possible applications include cosmic dust detectors or spacesuit smart skins.
Astronomers report first detection of ultrabright radio flashes in our own galaxy
The fast radio bursts are likely generated by a magnetar, the most magnetic type of star in the universe.
Designing new mirror materials for better gravitational-wave detection
Nicholas Demos, a first-generation college graduate and MathWorks Fellow in MIT’s Kavli Institute, is improving our ability to listen to the cosmos.
The wobbling shadow of the M87* black hole
Analysis of Event Horizon Telescope observations from 2009 to 2017 reveals turbulent evolution of the M87* black hole image.
Astronomers discover an Earth-sized “pi planet” with a 3.14-day orbit
The rocky world, with its baking-hot surface, is likely not habitable.
Astronomers may have found a signature of life on Venus
Evidence indicates phosphine, a gas associated with living organisms, is present in the habitable region of Venus’ atmosphere.
MIT-led team to develop software to help forecast space storms
National Science Foundation awards proposal for space weather modeling.
A “bang” in LIGO and Virgo detectors signals most massive gravitational-wave source yet
A binary black hole merger likely produced gravitational waves equal to the energy of eight suns.