Astronomy and astrophysics

MIT physicists have observed that LIGO’s 40-kilogram mirrors can move in response to tiny quantum effects. In this photo, a LIGO optics technician inspects one of LIGO’s mirrors.

Quantum fluctuations can jiggle objects on the human scale

Study shows LIGO’s 40-kilogram mirrors can move in response to tiny quantum effects, revealing the “spooky popcorn of the universe.”

July 1, 2020

In our solar system, the “ice giants” Neptune and Uranus are far less dense than rocky Venus and Earth. But astrophysicists on NASA’s TESS mission have now found an exoplanet, TOI-849b, that appears to be 40 times more massive than Earth, yet just as dense. This illustration depicts the exoplanet, UCF-1.01. Like TOI-849b, this exoplanet also orbits close to a star and is like “hot Neptune....

TESS mission discovers massive ice giant

Neptune-sized planet may be remnant core of a much larger planet.

July 1, 2020

CHIME, pictured here, consists of four large antennas, each about the size and shape of a snowboarding half-pipe, and is designed with no moving parts. Rather than swiveling to focus on different parts of the sky, CHIME stares fixedly at the entire sky, looking for fast radio burst sources across the universe.

Astronomers detect regular rhythm of radio waves, with origins unknown

Signal from 500 million light years away is the first periodic pattern of radio bursts detected.

June 17, 2020

Physics graduate student Danielle Frostig awaits the lifting of travel restrictions to mount a astronomical instrument she helped develop on the Magellan Telescope in Las Campanas, Chile.

Capturing stardust

Danielle Frostig, a physics graduate student, is developing an instrument to study how the heaviest elements in the universe are produced.

June 12, 2020

Researchers at MIT, the University of Oklahoma, and elsewhere, with the help of citizen scientists, have identified a brown dwarf with a disk that is the youngest of its kind within about 100 parsecs of Earth. The brown dwarf, named W1200-7845 and depicted in this image, appears to have the kind of disk that could form planets.

Citizen scientists spot closest young brown dwarf disk yet

Discovery made through the Disk Detective project could help the search for new planets.

June 2, 2020

New research suggests that next-generation telescopes might look first for hydrogen atmospheres, as hydrogen can be a viable, easily detectable biosignature of life.

Study: Life might survive, and thrive, in a hydrogen world

When searching for extraterrestrial life, astronomers may want to look at planets with hydrogen-rich atmospheres.

May 4, 2020

The multi-wavelength 3C 279 jet structure is seen in April 2017. The wavelengths (λ) in millimeters, observation days, and arrays are noted in each panel.

Event Horizon Telescope observes a black hole-powered jet

MIT Haystack Observatory researchers coauthor a paper announcing the observation of a surprising structure in a distant quasar, 3C 279.

April 14, 2020

Kazunori Akiyama has been working at MIT Haystack Observatory, a radio science research center in Westford, Massachusetts, as a postdoc of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science since 2015 and as a NRAO Jansky Fellow since 2017.

Kazunori Akiyama receives 2020 Young Astronomer Award

Awards program annually recognizes three early-career scientists under 35 who have made outstanding contributions to astronomy.

March 2, 2020

MIT researchers have devised a framework for deciding which type of mission would be most successful in deflecting an incoming asteroid, taking into account an asteroid’s mass and momentum, its proximity to a gravitational keyhole, and the amount of warning time that scientists have of an impending collision.

How to deflect an asteroid

MIT engineers devise a decision map to identify the best mission type to deflect an incoming asteroid.

February 18, 2020

Two views of the asteroid Pallas, which researchers have determined to be the most heavily cratered object in the asteroid belt.

Study reveals details of “golf ball asteroid”

A tilted orbit may explain the asteroid Pallas’ highly cratered surface.

February 10, 2020

K. Renee Horton, NASA scientist and past president of the National Society of Black Physicists, speaks with students at a recent physics conference. Due to a climate that has consistently excluded African-Americans from succeeding in physics and astronomy, a new task force report urges significant cultural changes in these fields.

Making physics and astronomy more welcoming to African-American students

Report co-chaired by MIT professor cites need for “sweeping changes” in academic culture.

January 13, 2020

Giant cavities in the X-ray emitting intracluster medium (shown in blue, as observed by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory) have been carved out by the black hole outburst. The X-ray data are overlaid on top of optical data from the Hubble Space Telescope (in red/orange), where the central galaxy that is likely hosting the culprit supermassive black hole is also visible.

The billion-year belch

Michael Calzadilla and colleagues describe a violent black hole outburst that provides new insight into galaxy cluster evolution.

December 23, 2019

Phosphine, a molecule known on Earth for its smelly and toxic nature, may be a sure sign of alien life if detected in nearby exoplanets.

A sign that aliens could stink

A molecule that’s known for its smelly and poisonous nature on Earth may be a sure-fire sign of extraterrestrial life.

December 18, 2019

A map of gamma ray emissions throughout the Milky Way galaxy, based on observations from the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. The inset depicts the Galactic Center Excess – an unexpected, spherical region of gamma ray emissions at the center of our galaxy, of unknown origin.

Is there dark matter at the center of the Milky Way?

A new analysis puts dark matter back in the game as a possible source of energy excess at the galactic center.

December 10, 2019

Researchers install a new quantum squeezing device into one of LIGO’s gravitational wave detectors.

New instrument extends LIGO’s reach

Technology “squeezes” out quantum noise so more gravitational wave signals can be detected.

December 5, 2019

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