School of Science

MIT astronomers have witnessed flashes of X-rays shooting out of a black hole and believe that a dead star, or white dwarf, passing close by the black hole could be causing the eruptions, reports Mark Kaufman for Mashable. “The astronomers ran simulations of what could drive these unusual bursts of energy,” writes Kaufman. “The most plausible outcome is this brazen white dwarf (the spent core of a sun-like star), which is about one-tenth the mass of our sun. It's shedding its dense, outer layer and triggering these pulses of X-rays.” 

Space.com reporter Robert Lea writes that using the XMM-Newton X-ray telescope, MIT astronomers have observed bursts of X-rays erupting with increasing frequency from a supermassive black hole, a behavior they think could be caused by a “dead stellar core, or white dwarf, daringly teetering on the edge of the black hole.” Lea explains that “if the source of these strange episodes is a finely balanced white dwarf, the researchers theorize that it could be detected using ripples in space and time called gravitational waves emitted from the system.”

Quanta Magazine reporter Charlie Wood spotlights how MIT researchers have contributed to the recent discoveries of new superconductive materials. Prof. Long Ju and his research team “placed a five-layer graphene flake on an insulator at a twisted angle and observed a rare electron behavior that normally requires a strong magnetic field to induce,” explains Wood. 

MIT Profs. Angela Belcher, Emery Brown, Paula Hammond and Feng Zhang have been honored with National Medals of Science and Technology, reports Michael T. Neitzel for Forbes. Additionally, R. Lawrence Edwards '76 received a National Medal of Science and Noubar Afeyan PhD '87, a member of the MIT Corporation, accepted a National Medal on behalf of Moderna. The recipients have been awarded “the nation’s highest honors for exemplary achievements and leadership in science and technology,” explains Neitzel. 

Prof. Anna Frebel spotlights the work of Cecilia Payne, whose research “laid the foundation of stellar astrophysics,” reports Liz Kruesi for National Geographic. “It is such a fundamental piece of understanding for humanity,” says Frebel of the importance of Payne’s work discovering that stars are mainly made up of hydrogen and helium 

Prof. Tracy Slatyer speaks with Salon reporter Elizabeth Hlavinka about the mysteries of dark matter. “It could be that this idea that we’re going to test this experimentally is just a false hope,” Slatyer explains. “But at the same time, given what we know, dark matter could be a new particle that is lighter than any of the particles we know about, something that is being produced all the time around us, particles that are continually flying through the room — and you just need to put up a sensitive detector and you will find them.”

Researchers at MIT and elsewhere have found “the smallest asteroids ever detected within the main belt, which is a field between Mars and Jupiter where millions of asteroids orbit,” reports Sabrina Lam for The Boston Globe. “With new technology, we can find populations of asteroids that were inaccessible previously,” says Prof. Julien De Wit.  “Now we have the capability to be able to study this object further out, predict the orbit with much better accuracy, and decide what to do for potential or possible future impactors.”

Prof. Rob Simcoe speaks with Knowable Magazine reporter Elizabeth Quill about the role of the James Webb Telescope in advancing scientific discoveries. “The tools that we can bring to bear now on studying this epoch of cosmic history are unlike anything we’ve had before,” says Simcoe. 

Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), MIT astronomers have spotted “small space rocks – including some just dozens of feet in length, the tiniest ever discovered in our solar system’s main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter,” reports Robin George Andrews for National Geographic. “This work helps to fill in astronomers’ understanding of the asteroid belt, the wreckage left behind from the inner solar system’s formation—and it’s always nice to spy more of those rocky time capsules for future study,” explains Andrews. 

In an interview with CNBC, Prof. Max Tegmark highlights the importance of increased AI regulation, specifically as a method to mitigate potential harm from large language models. “All other technologies in the United States, all other industries, have some kind of safety standards,” says Tegmark. “The only industry that is completely unregulated right now, which has no safety standards, is AI.” 

Physics World has selected two research advances by MIT physicists for its Top 10 Breakthroughs of the Year for 2024, reports Hamish Johnston for Physics World. Graduate student Andrew Denniston and his colleagues were honored for their work “being the first to unify two distinct descriptions of atomic nuclei,” which Johnston describes as a “major step forward in our understanding of nuclear structure and strong interactions.” MIT researchers were also featured for their work demonstrating quantum error correction on an atomic processor with 48 logical qubits, making it “far more likely that quantum computers will become practical problem-solving machines.”

Writing for Scientific American, former postdoctoral fellow Aza Allsop PhD '16 and his colleagues spotlight bias in the scientific community. “When the significant contributions of Black scientists are excluded, we all lose,” they write. “This is why it is time that awarding committees and beyond finally begin acknowledging the significant discoveries made by Black scientists that benefit all of humanity—and giving them the proper recognition they deserve.”

MIT scientists have discovered the smallest asteroids known to exist in the Main Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter, reports Alfredo Carpineti for IFL Science. “The team of researchers behind this new discovery cleverly reused images from the search for exoplanets,” writes Carpineti. “Stacks of images looking at the same distant star field were used with a technique called “shift and stack”, which aims to highlight possible movement in the foreground, like from an asteroid. They were able to find 138 asteroids in the decameter size range.”

Boston Business Journal reporter Hannah Green spotlights the MIT Health and Life Sciences Collaborative, a new effort designed to connect researchers, medical professionals, and industry leaders in a shared mission to address some of the most pressing health challenges of our time. Green notes that the collaborative aims to “spur high-impact discoveries and health solutions through interdisciplinary projects across engineering, science, AI, economics, business, policy, design, and the humanities.” 

Forbes contributor Michael T. Nietzel spotlights the newest cohort of Rhodes Scholars, which includes Yiming Chen '24, Wilhem Hector, Anushka Nair, and David Oluigbo from MIT. Nietzel notes that Oluigbo has “published numerous peer-reviewed articles and conducts research on applying artificial intelligence to complex medical problems and systemic healthcare challenges.”