Astronomy and astrophysics

Prof. Anna-Christina Eilers and postdoctoral associate Rohan Naidu speak with Scientific American reporter Rebecca Boyle about the discovery and study of Little Red Dots, mysterious, red spots that showed up in images from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).  The dots, which astronomers dated to 600 million years after the big bang, “are in every single image the telescope takes,” says Naidu. “We have to find out about them if we want to tell a complete story about the early universe." 

Using the James Webb Telescope, postdoctoral associate Rohan Naidu and his colleagues have captured a glimpse of Galaxy MoM-z14, which existed 280 million years after the Big Bang, and could provide clues as to what the universe was like during its infancy and how it has evolved over time, reports Passant Rabbie for Gizmodo. “We can take a page from archeology and look at these ancient stars in our own galaxy like fossils from the early universe,” says Naidu. “Except in astronomy we are lucky enough to have Webb seeing so far that we also have direct information about galaxies during that time.” 

Quanta Magazine reporter Jonathan O’Callaghan spotlights Prof. David Kaiser and graduate student Alexandra Klipfel, and their work searching for evidence of primordial black holes. “Very little mass gets radiated over the majority of the black hole’s lifetime,” explains Klipfel. “But then, right at the end, it emits a majority of its mass in a very rapid explosion. It heats up really, really quickly, a runaway process that ends in a big explosion of ultra-high-energy particles.”

A new analysis conducted by postdoctoral associate Rohan Naidu and his colleagues has found evidence that suggests “little red dot” galaxies may contain baby black holes, reports Alex Wilkins for New Scientist. “In ordinary black holes, what you actually see with your eyes is the tip of the iceberg of the total energy that is coming out of the system, but the little red dots we now understand should really be thought of as these puffed-up black hole stars,” says Naidu. “It seems that most of their energy is coming out at these wavelengths that we see with our eyes, so what you see is what you get.” 

The Economist chronicles the life and work of Prof. Nuno Loureiro, from his childhood in Portugal where he dreamed of becoming a scientist to his work at MIT as a “fusion pioneer” leading the Plasma Science and Fusion Center. “He walked into his classes beaming, ready to cover the blackboard with figures. He joked like a friend, but he worked his students vigorously, advising them that if they were not yet the best, they should strive to be. Failure was not to be feared, because it showed they were trying to tackle the really hard problems.”

Prof. Nuno F.G. Loureiro is remembered as a “brilliant ‘physicist’s physicist,’” who “pushed for revolutionary breakthroughs in the complex, arcane field of plasma science,” in a tribute by Boston Globe reporter Brian MacQuarrie. “Inside and outside the lab, Mr. Loureiro also was known for a charismatic leadership style that combined warmth, humor, and personal engagement in the relentless pursuit of excellence,” MacQuarrie writes. “Nuno represents what MIT treasures in its people,” notes Prof. Joseph Paradiso, “at the top of his game in research, but with a wide-ranging curious mind ready to grapple with new ideas.”

The Advanced LIGO Documentary Project commemorates the life and legacy of Prof. Emeritus Rainer Weiss, a recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics and “LIGO’s heart and soul.” Said Weiss of the significance of detecting gravitational waves: "The discovery isn't the measurement of the gravitational waves…it's the black holes. That's absolutely spectacular... that this exists, and if you see a couple more, then you could say something about the universe. It's something new that we're going to be able to say about the universe. It's spectacular. To me, that's the big discovery."

Using the James Webb Telescope, researchers at MIT and elsewhere are studying the potential presence of “an Earth-like atmosphere on an exoplanet for the first time,” reports Jacopo Prisco for CNN. “The planet is part of a planetary system about 40 light-years away from Earth called TRAPPIST-1,” explains Prisco. 

Prof. Nergis Mavalvala, dean of the MIT School of Science, joins Bob McDonald of CBC’s “Quirks & Quarks” to discuss how 10 years after LIGO’s first detection of gravitational waves the observatories are still “helping scientists better understand the life cycles of stars, the nature of gravity, and transforming the way we explore the farthest reaches of space.” Mavalvala shares: "Scientists have been able to design and construct these instruments that are capable of measuring imperceptibly small changes in spacetime distance, and in the past 10 years the sensitivity of these instruments has improved. That’s what is allowing us to make greater discoveries.” 

Writing for The New York Times, Dennis Overbye celebrates the 10-year anniversary of LIGO’s first direct detection of gravitational waves, underscoring how LIGO has advanced our understanding of the universe’s cosmic history. The first detection was a discovery that “changed astrophysics, opening a window onto previously inaccessible realms of nature in which space could rip, bend, puff up, crumple and even vanish,” writes Overbye. The late Prof. Emeritus Rainer Weiss, who dreamed up the idea for LIGO, said of LIGO’s first detection in September 2015: “It was waving hello. It was amazing. The signal was so big, I didn’t believe it.”

Writing for Nature, Bruce Allen pays tribute to Prof. Emeritus Rainer Weiss, a pioneering physicist who “spearheaded the construction of the LIGO observatory to detect Einstein’s predicted ripples in space-time [and] leaves a legacy of persistence and mentorship.” Allen recalls how, decades earlier, Weiss rejoiced in a moment of discovery with him. “This is why we do science,” Weiss said. “Not for prizes or awards — that’s all nonsense. It’s for the satisfaction when something you’ve struggled with finally works.” Weiss, Allen emphasizes, was “a scientist driven by curiosity, persistence and the joy of understanding how the Universe works.”

Wall Street Journal reporter Jon Mooallem memorializes the life and work of Prof. Emeritus Rainer Weiss, from his time hacking surplus military electronics into sophisticated hi-fi receivers as a teenager to dreaming up the concept for the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO). Mooallem notes that Weiss and his LIGO colleagues’ breakthrough in achieving the first-ever detection of gravitational waves “has provided a new way of looking at the universe, of observing, through the charting of gravity waves emitted by moving objects, what was previously unobservable or unknown—a milestone that is frequently compared with Galileo’s invention of the telescope.”

Prof. Rainer Weiss, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist whose research helped “unlock the secrets of the universe,” has died at 92, reports Bryan Marquard for The Boston Globe. “He really is, by a large margin, the most influential person this field has seen. And will see,” said Caltech Prof. Emeritus Kip Thorne. Nergis Mavalvala, dean of the MIT School of Science who conducted her doctoral research with Weiss, shared that Weiss “worked on three different things, and every one of them has changed the way we understand physics and the universe.”

Prof. Emeritus Rainer Weiss, a “renowned experimental physicist” who was “integral in confirming the existence of tiny ripples in spacetime called ‘gravitational waves,’” has died, reports Robert Lea for Space.com. “Remarkably, in confirming the existence of gravitational waves, Weiss both proved Einstein right and wrong at the same time,” writes Lea. “Einstein had been convinced that these ripples in spacetime were so faint that no apparatus on Earth could ever be sensitive enough to detect them, showing just how revolutionary LIGO was.”

Tri-City Herald reporter Annette Cary memorializes the life and legacy of MIT Prof. Emeritus Rainer Weiss, a “renowned experimental physicist and Nobel laureate,” who was “key to [the] world’s first gravitational wave discovery.” At the opening ceremony in June 2022 for the LIGO Exploration Center in Hanford, Washington, Weiss relayed how life is more interesting if you have a deeper understanding of the world around you and “how science does its tricks.”