Prof. Taylor Perron has been named a recipient of the 2021 MacArthur Fellowship for his work investigating the processes that create a planet’s landforms, reports Ellen McCarthy for The Washington Post.
Vice reporter Becky Ferreira writes that a study by MIT scientists examining extreme climate events in the Earth’s history finds that as the planet warms we could be more susceptible to volatile climate extremes. “I think these results emphasize that Earth's long-term evolution is governed by complex, potentially amplifying mechanisms that we do not yet fully understand,” explains graduate student Constantin Arnscheidt.
Inside Science reporter Tom Metcalfe writes that MIT researchers have developed a new method for taking the Earth’s temperature by examining basaltic rocks, and used the method to create a model of the Earth's oceanic ridges. "We are constantly stressing how [plate] tectonics operated in the past," says postdoc Stephanie Brown Krein. "And so I think it's really important for us to be able to understand how tectonics are working in the present day.”
Gizmodo reporter George Dvorsky writes that astronomers have found two red asteroids, which resemble objects typically found beyond Neptune, in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. “This finding suggests some asteroids in the main belt formed in the outer solar system, and that a population of these objects is likely to exist within the main belt,” writes Dvorsky.
A new study co-authored by postdoctoral associate Michaël Marsset details how two red objects that have been discovered in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter appear to have originated beyond Neptune, reports Jonathan O’Callaghan for The New York Times. “In order to have these organics, you need to initially have a lot of ice at the surface,” explains Marsset. “So they must have formed in a very cold environment.”
Provost Marty Schmidt speaks with TopUniversities.com reporter Chloe Lane about how MIT has maintained its position as the top university in the world on the QS World University Rankings for 10 consecutive years. “I am honored to have been a part of the MIT community for almost 40 years,” says Schmidt. “It’s a truly interdisciplinary, collaborative, thought-provoking place that encourages experimentation and pushes you to expand your mind. I think it’s a wonderful place to call home.”
Prof. Kerry Emanuel speaks with Ozak Esu and James Lawler of Climate Now about how we know the climate is changing. “We have high confidence that this very high rate of warming, by the standards of the geological past, is owing to the measured incontrovertible increase in greenhouse gases," says Emanuel.
A coalition of students, faculty and alumni have come together to raise the funds necessary to replace the radome that sits atop the Building 54, reports Hiawatha Bray for The Boston Globe. “Once the overhaul is complete, MIT’s radio buffs, astronomers, and satellite researchers will have a tool that will serve them for decades,” writes Bray. “And they’ll have also preserved one of the school’s most famous landmarks.”
In a conversation with New Scientist reporter Jonathan O’Callaghan, Prof. Tanja Bosak discusses her work with the NASA Perseverance rover’s rock reconnaissance mission. “In the middle of a pandemic, I think we needed something good to happen, and that’s why so many people wanted all the science and engineering that goes into landing a rover on Mars to succeed,” says Bosak. “As for what will happen when the samples come back – I can’t imagine. It’s going to be otherworldly.”
In an article for Scientific American, graduate students Meghana Ranganathan, Julia Wilcots, Rohini Shivamoggi and Diana Dumit call for the removal of racist language from the names of many geographic features and places in the United States. “We cannot have a just society when racist names are officially sanctioned,” they write. “We need a national, multifaceted push to change any instances of racial slurs and racist terminology in our natural land features.”
Writing for The Boston Globe, M.J. Andersen highlights Prof. Sara Seager’s book, “The Smallest Lights in the Universe.” Seager’s memoir is "half hymn to the stars and half guide to grief recovery,” writes Andersen. “Lured by her faith in finding life elsewhere, she continued her research on exoplanets — versions of other star-orbiting Earths — and methods for detecting them.”
Prof. Sara Seager speaks with Washington Post reporter Timothy Bella about the search for exoplanets and the James Webb Telescope. “I just remember seeing the stars and being overwhelmed by the beauty and the vastness and the mysteriousness of it,” recalled Seager, of a camping trip with her father that helped inspire her interest in space. “There’s something almost terrifying about it at the same time as it being so beautiful, because yeah, it’s so unknown, and it seems like it goes on forever.”
A new study by MIT researchers finds that the oceans may begin emitting chlorofluorocarbons by 2075, reports Valerie Yurk for E&E News. “Even if there were no climate change, as CFCs decay in the atmosphere, eventually the ocean has too much relative to the atmosphere, and it will come back out," says Prof. Susan Solomon.
"We are looking for remnants of past life," says Prof. Tanja Bosak in a discussion broadcast on GBH's Boston Public Radio of the NASA Perseverance rover’s mission on Mars. "There won't be anything that's a complex organism, so everything we have to look for is microscopic. All these rocks tell a story. Depending on their chemical properties and the way they look, we can tell a history and then decide which may have been good to preserve life."
Profs. Tonja Bosak and Jeffrey Hoffman speak with CBS Boston about the successful landing of the NASA Perseverance rover on Mars. Hoffman says of the MIT-designed Mars MOXIE experiment: “we are going to demonstrate how to make oxygen on the surface of Mars…we want to learn how to produce that on the surface of Mars and that’s what Moxie is going to demonstrate for the first time.”