A team of astronomers, including researchers from MIT, have discovered three potentially habitable planets, reports Ashley Strickland for CNN. Strickland writes that the “results are just the beginning of a study that will continue for years. The researchers are already working on observations to see if the planets have water or methane molecules.”
Astronomers at MIT, in collaboration with an international team of scientists, have detected three planets, located 40 light years away, that could potentially be habitable. The “planets likely have permanent day and night sides. The next step is to look for signs of biological conditions on the planets.”
Huffington Post reporter Michael McLaughlin writes that a new study co-authored by MIT postdoc Julien de Wit details the discovery of three Earth-sized planets. The “planets orbit a star in the Aquarius constellations named Trappist-1,” writes McLaughlin. “But the planets are close enough to the star to have ‘temperate’ conditions on their surface.”
Boston Globe reporter Astead Herndon writes that an international team of astronomers, including researchers from MIT, have discovered three potentially habitable planets. “This is a paradigm shift,” says Julien de Wit, a postdoc at MIT. “These planets are the best shots for us to search for other habitats, and maybe even life.”
Inside Higher Ed's Carl Straumsheim speaks with Dr. Peter Fritschel about how LIGO researchers selected Physical Review Letters to publish the team’s discovery of gravitational waves. After LIGO members cast their votes, Fritschel explained that PRL was a “pretty clear winner,” citing its reputation as a “premier journals for physics results.”
Prof. Matthew Evans speaks with Joshua Sokol of New Scientist about the LIGO findings. “Until this detection, there was a question about the existence of binary black hole systems,” Evans explains. “So it is a pleasant surprise for us to have detected them.”
DAWN profiles Prof. Nergis Mavalvala, highlighting her work on LIGO, and what inspired her interest in physics and the hunt for gravitational waves. “Even when Nergis was a freshman, she struck me as fearless, with a refreshing can-do attitude,” says Robert Berg, a professor of physics at Wellesley College.
Profs. Rainer Weiss and Nergis Mavalvala speak with Tom Ashbrook, host of NPR’s On Point, about the detection of gravitational waves. “We fully expect, as with every revolution in astronomy, that when you open a new way of looking at it [the universe] you will learn things that I can’t even tell you yet,” says Weiss.
Joshua Sokol writes for New Scientist that the detection of gravitational waves will allow researchers to explore the universe’s most exotic objects. “Imagine you’re playing the movie of the universe. This is going to be the end of the silent movie era in astronomy because you have just added sound,” says Senior Research Scientist Erik Katsavounidis.
WBUR's Bruce Gellerman speaks with Prof. Nergis Mavalvala about what the detection of gravitational waves means for the future of astronomy. “The discovery itself is spectacular, but it’s the potential for what comes next that’s even bigger,” says Mavalvala. “We are really witnessing the opening of a new way of doing astronomy.”
Kendra Pierre-Louis writes for Motherboard about the work behind the LIGO team's detection of gravitational waves. Pierre-Louis explains that in the 1960s, Prof. Rainer Weiss was teaching a class on gravitational physics and “devised a method that he felt was theoretically more rigorous, using a clock and laser beams” to detect gravitational waves.
In an article for Sky & Telescope, Robert Naeye writes about how the first detection of gravitational waves unleashes new possibilities for observing additional events in the universe. "This is the end of the silent-movie era in astronomy,” explains Senior Research Scientist Erik Katsavounidis.
Professors Matthew Evans and Nergis Mavalvala speak with CBS Boston about the LIGO Scientific Collaboration’s findings. “We heard, essentially, the largest thing that nature could produce and that means we are only barely not deaf. We’re just starting to detect things,” says Evans.
In an interview with WCVB’s Pam Cross, Professors Matthew Evans and Nergis Mavalvala describe the sounds of the recently detected gravitational waves. “We can listen to things happening in the universe, and this first signal is like the first big bump in the night,” Evans says.
David Shoemaker, director of MIT’s LIGO Lab, speaks with AFP about the day that the LIGO team detected gravitational waves. "It was just at the beginning of this run, when we were all ready to go…that the gravitational wave was observed," he said. "So it was a very exciting moment for us and it took us perfectly by surprise."