3 Questions: Richard Binzel on near-Earth asteroids
'2011 MD,' found by a Lincoln Lab team, will pass close to the planet on Monday.
Exploring exploration
From deep space to deep sea, two-day symposium examined MIT’s impacts and innovations.
Cold asteroids may have a soft heart
Partially molten small bodies may be abundant in space, and may have given the Earth its oceans.
EAPS, physics professor James Elliot dies at 67
Led team that discovered the rings of Uranus in 1977.
3 Questions: Sara Seager on discovering a trove of new planets
NASA’s Kepler orbiting telescope has found hundreds of new possible planets, including 54 in the so-called 'habitable zone.'
Explained: Transiting exoplanets
How astronomers learn whether a planet is habitable by observing slight changes in light emanating from its parent star.
And then there was light
Astronomers probe ancient radio waves for clues about the universe’s first light.
The final frontier
Now that an Earthlike planet has been discovered, the key to confirming that it can host life will be to study its atmosphere in detail
Learning from hot Jupiters
By studying how massive planets may have formed, MIT astrophysicist sets the stage for studying smaller, more Earthlike planets.
Building a list of Earth candidates
MIT researchers increase their odds of detecting an Earthlike planet by working on a combination of satellite missions.
Astronomers detect first carbon-rich exoplanet
Discovery opens door to new class of exoplanets, including rocky planets rich in diamond and graphite.
Nergis Mavalvala wins MacArthur ‘genius’ grant
Physics professor and two alumni are awarded $500,000 in no-strings-attached funding.
Robert J. Butler, former design research engineer at MIT, dies at 89
An MIT engineer for 25 years, he helped design instruments for NASA’s Voyager spacecraft.
Explained: the Doppler effect
The same phenomenon behind changes in the pitch of a moving ambulance’s siren is helping astronomers locate and study distant planets.
