For the third time, researchers from the LIGO Scientific Collaboration have detected gravitational waves produced by the merger of two black holes, reports Irene Klotz for Reuters. “We’re really moving from novelty to a new observational science,” says MIT's David Shoemaker, spokesperson for the LIGO Scientific Collaboration.
Wall Street Journal reporter Robert Lee Hotz writes that scientists from the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) have successfully detected two black holes merging for the third time. MIT’s David Shoemaker, spokesperson for the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, explains that the discovery shows, “we are really moving to a new astronomy of gravitational waves.”
Vincent Fish, a research scientist at MIT’s Haystack Observatory, speaks with Hannah Osborne of Newsweek about the first attempt to capture an image of a black hole using the Event Horizon Telescope. “What we expect to see is an asymmetric image where you have a circular dark region,” says Fish. “That’s the black hole shadow.”
Astronomers are using data gathered by telescopes around the world to develop the first image of a black hole, according to the AFP. “All the data -- some 500 terabytes per station -- will be collected and flown on jetliners to the MIT Haystack Observatory in Massachusetts, where it will be processed by supercomputers.”
WGBH reporter Edgar Herwick visits the Haystack Observatory to learn about how astronomers are using radio telescopes to try to capture the first image of a black hole. "It’s a mind-blowing adventure, what the human mind and the human imagination can do with technology and science and creativity,” explains Haystack's Michael Hecht.
MIT researchers have observed a black hole devouring a star, reports Torah Kachur for CBC News. After looking at about a year’s worth of data, researchers found that the “star was getting pulled apart and literally shredded into a debris stream that spiraled around the center of this black hole,” writes Kachur.
Elizabeth Howell writes for Scientific American that a team of researchers, including scientists from MIT, have observed that when a black hole consumes a star there is a burst of electromagnetic activity. Howell explains that the “new research suggests that interactions among the debris could generate the optical and UV emission.”
Calla Cofield writes for Scientific American that a grant will allow the HERA team to search for light from the universe’s first generation of stars. Prof. Jacqueline Hewitt, who is leading the grant, says it’s “remarkable we're designing instruments so we can detect what was happening 13 billion years ago.”
MIT researchers have observed a black hole devouring a star almost 300 million light years away, writes Andy Rosen for The Boston Globe. “We are actually mapping out in real time what is happening as the star is getting ripped [apart] and it’s falling onto the black hole,” says postdoctoral fellow Dheeraj Pasham.
Brooks Hays writes for UPI about a new study showing that supermassive black holes consume stellar debris in bursts. "What we're seeing is, this stellar material is not just continuously being fed onto the black hole, but it's interacting with itself," explains Dheeraj Pasham, a researcher at MIT's Kavli Institute and co-author of the paper.
Prof. Sara Seager speaks with WGBH’s Edgar Herwick about the search for life on other planets, following the discovery of seven Earth-sized exoplanets. "The first thing we’re gonna look for is water vapor in the atmosphere," Seager explains. “If there’s water, we want to look and see if there are gasses that don’t belong that might be produced by life."
Postdoc Julien de Wit speaks with Boston Herald reporter Marie Szaniszlo about the discovery of seven Earth-like planets. De Wit, who is leading the effort to study the planets’ atmospheres, explains that “this is the first time that we’ve found so many small planets — each potentially habitable — around the same star, a star that’s close to us.”
Postdoc Julien de Wit speaks with NPR reporter Nell Greenfieldboyce about the discovery of seven exoplanets that could harbor the conditions necessary to sustain liquid water. Greenfieldboyce reports that de Wit explained that the planets have a “‘winning combination’ of being temperate, Earth-size and ideally suited for follow-up observations with telescopes to analyze their atmospheres.”
An international team of scientists, including astronomers from MIT, has discovered seven Earth-sized planets, reports Sarah Kaplan for The Washington Post. Julien de Wit, a postdoc at MIT who is leading the study of the planets’ atmospheres, explains that repeated observations of the planets, “lifted the veil on the architecture of the system.”
New York Times reporter Kenneth Chang writes about the discovery of seven Earth-sized exoplanets by a team of researchers, including MIT scientists. The discovery makes “the search for life in the galaxy imminent,” says Prof. Sara Seager. “We just have to wait and then make very careful observations and see what is in the atmospheres of the Trappist planets.”