A new tool developed by researchers at MIT and Stanford could help map out the interior of asteroids, reports Alison Synder and Miriam Kramer for Axios. This could make “it easier to know the most effective way of throwing them off-course,” writes Synder and Kramer.
Prof. Paulo Lozano speaks with Boston Globe reporter Travis Anderson about NASA’s recent asteroid test, which successfully shifted the orbit of a harmless asteroid. The mission had a “truly inspirational result,” says Lozano. “We’re getting closer to hav[ing] the ability to protect our planet from one of the most destructive forces in nature.”
Researchers at MIT co-authored a study which found that two stars in a binary system 3,000 light years from Earth are orbiting each other so closely that one of the stars has burnt out, reports Will Dunham for Reuters. "Basically, they were bound together for 8 billion years in a binary orbit,” says postdoc Kevin Burdge, “And now, right before the second one could end its stellar life cycle and become a white dwarf in the way that stars normally do - by evolving into a type of star called a red giant - the leftover white dwarf remnant of the first star interrupted the end of the companion's lifecycle and started slowly consuming it."
Prof. Richard Binzel speaks with CBS News reporter David Pogue about asteroids and the Torino scale, a 10-point danger scale for asteroids that he created. "All the objects [asteroids] we know of today reside at zero or one, which simply means they're so small that they don't matter, or that we know for sure there's no impact possibility," says Binzel.
Prof. Paulo Lozano speaks with 7 News about NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft, which slammed into an asteroid Monday night, demonstrating how an asteroid threatening Earth could be deflected. Lozano notes that there are millions of space rocks in the solar system, “many of them are characterized but the grand majority are not, and these objects can basically take out a city. Being prepared for these kinds of events will be very important.”
Researchers at MIT and elsewhere have discovered a new exoplanet within a star’s habitable zone, reports Popular Mechanics. The exoplanet “requires further investigation to see if [it] has a life-supporting atmosphere – and possibly water,” writes Popular Mechanics.
Prof. Tanja Bosak speaks with Science reporter Eric Hand about how scientists plan to study rock samples from Mars for clues as to whether the planet once had a magnetic field and for signs of ancient life, such as the tough lipid molecules that can form cell walls. “You hope for an outline of a cell,” she says. “You will never find peptides and proteins, but lipids can persist.”
Prof. Jack Wisdom and his colleagues have found that Saturn’s rings are comprised of debris from its former moon, reports Marina Koren for The Atlantic. “The researchers say the moon’s demise was mostly Titan’s fault. The big moon jostled the smaller one, putting the object on a very elongated track around Saturn,” writes Koren.
Prof. Jack Wisdom and his colleagues have found that “Saturn’s rings are a result of a moon that was torn apart by the planet’s tidal forces about 160 million years ago,” reports Jamie Carter for Forbes. “Wisdom and his co-researchers have dubbed the moon Chrysalis after the process of Chrysalis transforming into a butterfly,” writes Carter.
Reuters reporter Will Dunham writes that scientists from MIT and other institutions have found that the destruction of a large moon, called Chrysalis, that “strayed too close to Saturn would account both for the birth of the gas giant planet's magnificent rings and its unusual orbital tilt of about 27 degrees.” Prof. Jack Wisdom explained that "as a butterfly emerges from a chrysalis, the rings of Saturn emerged from the primordial satellite Chrysalis.”
A new study co-authored by MIT scientists proposes that Saturn’s rings could have been created when a lost moon of Saturn’s became unstable and crashed into the planet, reports Katie Hunt for CNN. “While the gas giant likely swallowed 99% of the moon, the remainder became suspended in orbit, breaking into small icy chunks that ultimately formed the planet’s rings,” writes Hunt.
Prof. Jack Wisdom and his colleagues have found that Saturn may have acquired its tilt and rings from a lost moon that was destroyed, reports Leah Crane for New Scientist. “Simulations using data from the Cassini spacecraft shows that an additional moon between Titan and Iapetus, destroyed between 100 million and 200 million years ago, could explain both of these long-standing mysteries,” explains Crane.
Prof. Jack Wisdom is the lead author of a new study that proposes “Saturn and Neptune’s gravity may have once been in sync, but Saturn has since escaped Neptune’s pull due to a missing moon,” reports Laura Baisas for Popular Science.
The Venus Life Finder (VLF) developed by scientists at MIT will be launched on a Rocket lab Electronic in May of 2023 to search for life in the upper atmosphere of Venus, reports Mark R. Whittington for The Hill. “When it plunges into Venus’ atmosphere it will use an instrument called the ‘autofluorescing nephelometer’ that will use a laser to illuminate organic molecules that may or may not exist 50 kilometers above the planet’s surface,” writes Whittington.
Prof. Dava Newman, director of the MIT Media Lab, speaks with Los Angeles Times reporter Samantha Masunaga about the delay of the Artemis 1 moon mission. “We don’t take chances, especially on such a huge, powerful rocket,” said Newman, a former NASA deputy administrator. “Everything has to work perfectly.”