Astronomers at MIT and elsewhere have picked up repeated radio signals from a galaxy billions of light-years away from Earth, reports Ayana Archie for NPR. “Scientists have not been able to pinpoint the exact location of the radio waves yet, but suspect the source could be neutron stars, which are made from collapsed cores of giant stars,” writes Archie.
Reporting for The Boston Globe, Hanna Kreuger highlights a graph documenting the atmospheric conditions of the exoplanet WASP-96b, which NASA included in its first release of images from the James Webb Space Telescope. Describing it as “perhaps the image that showcases Webb’s greatest triumph,” Krueger notes that the graph was created using an equation developed by Prof. Sara Seager. Seager and her team will use the telescope to peer into TRAPPIST-1e, an exoplanet widely considered to be potentially Earth-like and habitable, adds Krueger.
As the first images from the James Webb Space Telescope were released on Tuesday, showcasing the deepest view of the universe ever, CBS Boston spoke with Prof. Julien de Wit about the importance of the moment. “It’s groundbreaking. It’s like going from listening to the radio to suddenly being able to watch television,” says de Wit. “Further down the road, we may be able to see if planets are habitable, if some of these planets have signs of life one way or the other. There are so many things we’re going to discover thanks to it.”
Prof. Robert Simcoe and his team will receive 100 hours with the new James Webb Space Telescope to look at some of the first stars and galaxies to form after the Big Bang, reports David Bienick for WCVB. “I’m tremendously excited,” says Simcoe. “We have been preparing for this moment since 2016, knowing that we were going to have time and starting to prepare our observations, and waiting for the telescope to be ready.”
Ariel Ekblaw, director of the Space Exploration Initiative and founder of the Aurelia Institute, speaks with Fast Company reporter Rachael Zisk about accessibility needs for human spaceflight and the next generation of space stations. “The goal of democratizing access to space is to allow more people around the world to see themselves in that future,” says Ekblaw.
MIT scientists have suggested that a raft of thin-film silicon bubbles could potentially block the sun’s radiation from further warming the Earth and help prevent some of the impacts of climate change, reports Tim Newcomb for Popular Mechanics. “The MIT group believes that if the raft of bubbles can deflect 1.8 percent of incident solar radiation before it hits Earth, they can fully reverse today’s global warming,” writes Newcomb.
MIT researchers have created Thesan, the most detailed model of the early universe to date, reports New Scientist. “Thesan shows how radiation shaped the universe from 400,000 to 1 billion years after the Big Bang,” writes New Scientist.
Researchers from MIT, University College London, the University of Cambridge, and the NOAA have found that space projects by Elon Musk, Richard Branson, and Jeff Bezos are contributing to global warming and depleting the earth’s protective ozone layer, reports David Vetter for Forbes. “The London-Cambridge-MIT team looked at all the rocket launches and reentries that took place in 2019 and found that the global warming efficiency of black carbon soot released from rockets is 500 times greater than the same substance released at the Earth’s surface and by aircraft,” writes Vetter.
Astronomers have identified two Earth-sized exoplanets orbiting a red dwarf star 33 light years away, reports Jamie Carter for Forbes. “Both planets in this system are each considered among the best targets for atmospheric study because of the brightness of their star,” explains postdoc Michelle Kunimoto.
TechCrunch reporter Brian Heater spotlights multiple MIT research projects, including MIT Space Exploration Initiative’s TESSERAE, CSAIL’s Robocraft and the recent development of miniature flying robotic drones.
A team of MIT researchers have proposed that rafts of bubbles, carefully positioned between the Earth and Sun, can deflect sunlight to prevent further global warming, reports Angely Mercado for Gizmodo.
Associate Group Leader at the Lincoln Laboratory, William (Bill) Blackwell is the principal investigator for NASA’s TROPICS mission, which is preparing to launch small satellites into space to help better track the development of tropical storms, reports Justine Calma for The Verge. “With more frequent observations from these satellites, scientists hope to better understand how tropical storms grow and intensify,” writes Calma.
Prof. Erin Kara speaks with Harry Smith of NBC News about the data sonification of the black hole at the center of the Perseus Galaxy. Kara notes that data sonification is “a really exciting way to hear the universe and think about it in a new way.”
Gizmodo reporter Passant Rabie writes that researchers from MIT Lincoln Laboratory developed a tiny gold-coated satellite called the TeraByte InfraRed Delivery (TBIRD) system with the goal of beaming “down data at the fastest rate ever achieved by space lasers.”
Astronomers and researchers from MIT and 80 other institutions have captured the first image of a supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy reports Joel Achenbach for The Washington Post. “The pandemic slowed us down but it couldn’t stop us,” said research scientist Vincent Fish of the pandemic’s impact on the Event Horizon Telescope team’s work.