Physics

MIT researchers have uncovered BD+05 4868 Ab, “a planet that is disintegrating into boiling chunks of rock and evaporating minerals,” reports Andrew Paul for Popular Science. “Astronomers have only identified three disintegrating planets before BD+05 4868 Ab, all of which were detected over a decade ago using data collected by NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope,” explains Paul. “The newest find is the most violent example yet, with the longest tail and deepest transits of the four known examples.”

Astronomers at MIT have discovered a rapidly disintegrating planet “with a comet-like tail,” reports Ian Randall for Newsweek. “The planet is orbiting so close to its star that researchers estimate it has a surface temperature around 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit, giving it a molten surface that is boiling off material into space, where this cools to form a long, dusty tail,” explains Randall. 

Gizmodo reporter Issac Schultz writes that researchers, including MIT astronomers, have found that a sudden brightening from a star about 12,000 light-years away was caused by a Jupiter-sized planet “doomed by a slow orbital death spiral.” Using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, the astronomers found that the “unfortunate, roughly-Jupiter-sized planet was orbiting way too close for comfort—closer to its host star than Mercury is to our Sun. Over millions of years, that orbit shrank until the planet skimmed the star’s atmosphere.”

Astronomers from MIT and other institutions have discovered a “supermassive black hole that appears to be ‘waking up’ after being inactive for decades,” reports Soo Kim for Newsweek. “The black hole at the heart of SDSS1335+0728—a distant galaxy 300 million light-years away—was found to have produced flashes of light known as quasi-periodic eruptions (QPEs),” Kim explains, adding that the “the bursts of X-rays from Ansky were found to be 10 times longer and 10 times more luminous than what we see from a typical QPE.” 

Popular Science reporter Andrew Paul writes that a team of astronomers, including MIT scientists, has been studying a black hole dubbed Ansky that is in the process of waking up. Paul notes that what the researchers have documented "challenges prevailing theories about black hole lifecycles.” Graduate student Joheen Chakraborty explains: “The bursts of X-rays from Ansky are ten times longer and ten times more luminous than what we see from a typical QPE. Each of these eruptions is releasing a hundred times more energy than we have seen elsewhere. Ansky’s eruptions also show the longest cadence ever observed, of about 4.5 days.”

Astronomers from MIT and other institutions have discovered a “population of previously hidden galaxies that could shake up astrophysics,” reports Ian Randall for Newsweek. “If confirmed, this new population would effectively break all of our current models of galaxy numbers and evolution,” says graduate student Thomas Varnish. 

MIT researchers have made a key advance in the creating a practical quantum computer by demonstrating “remote entanglement—an essential step in building distributed quantum networks—by sending photons between two quantum processors,” reports Military & Aerospace Electronics. “This breakthrough lays the groundwork for large-scale quantum computing networks and could extend to other quantum computing platforms and the quantum internet.”

Aaron Leanhardt PhD '03 speaks with ABC News about his work developing the “torpedo bat,” a new baseball bat design that “moves the barrel – or the thickest part – closer than usual to the batter’s hand, putting more wood in the area where the hitter is most likely to hit the ball.” Leanhardt explains: “The world of data analytics, physics, math, etc., can have such a positive impact on the game of baseball and generate so much excitement.”  

Wall Street Journal reporter Jared Diamond spotlights how Aaron Leanhardt PhD ’03 went from an MIT graduate student who was part of a research team that “cooled sodium gas to the lowest temperature ever recorded in human history” to inventor of the torpedo baseball bat, “perhaps the most significant development in bat technology in decades.” Leanhardt’s new baseball bat design is aimed at helping “batters make more contact at a time when strikeouts are at an all-time high,” Diamond explains. “The result is a product that better resembles a bowling pin than a traditional bat, redistributing the weight to the area where players most often make contact with the ball.”

Using his background in physics, Aaron Leanhardt PhD '03 redesigned the modern baseball bat to “improve the frequency and quality of contact, based on where the batters most frequently hit the ball,” reports Alex Speier for The Boston Globe. 

USA Today reporter Steve Gardner spotlights the “torpedo bat” – a baseball bat developed by Aaron Leanhardt PhD '03. The new design moves “more of the wood toward the sweet spot of the bat, where players try to make contact and where the bat will produce optimal results,” explains Gardner. 

Prof. David Pritchard speaks with NBC News reporter David K. Li about his former student Aaron Leanhardt PhD '03 and his work developing the “torpedo” baseball bat. “It just takes some outsiders, like Aaron, who has a Ph.D. from MIT and really understands physics and knows what's going on, to be the sort of guy who drives something under the radar and see if it works," says Pritchard. 

Aaron Leanhardt PhD '03 has designed a new baseball bat, dubbed the torpedo bat, in which wood is moved “lower down the barrel after the label, and shapes the end a little like a bowling pin,” reports the Associated Press. “At the end of the day it’s about the batter not the bat,” says Leanhardt. “It’s about the hitter and their hitting coaches. I’m happy to always help those guys get a little bit better but ultimately it’s up to them to put good swings and grind it out every day. So, credit to those guys.”

Aaron Leanhardt PhD '03 has developed a new baseball bat that has “moved the fattest part from the end to the area where most contact is made,” reports Steve Henson for The Los Angeles Times.

Aaron Leanhardt PhD '03 speaks with The Athletic reporter Brendan Kuty about his work developing a new “torpedo-like” baseball bat. The bats “are custom-made to player preferences and are designed so that the densest part of the bat is where that particular hitter most often makes contact with the baseball,” writes Kuty. Says Leanhardt of the bat’s design: “It’s just about making the bat as heavy and as fat as possible in the area where you’re trying to do damage on the baseball.”