A technique to sift out the universe’s first gravitational waves
Identifying primordial ripples would be key to understanding the conditions of the early universe.
Pulling the secrets of dark matter out of a hat
Grad student Chiara Salemi and Professor Lindley Winslow use the ABRACADABRA instrument to reveal insights into dark matter.
3 Questions: Hsin-Yu Chen on treading lightly when dating the universe
MIT postdoc finds the angle at which we view neutron star collisions could significantly impact age measurements.
No matter the size of a nuclear party, some protons and neutrons will always pair up and dance
Findings on short-range nuclear interactions will help scientists investigate neutron stars and heavy radioactive nuclei.
Astronomers report first detection of ultrabright radio flashes in our own galaxy
The fast radio bursts are likely generated by a magnetar, the most magnetic type of star in the universe.
Designing new mirror materials for better gravitational-wave detection
Nicholas Demos, a first-generation college graduate and MathWorks Fellow in MIT’s Kavli Institute, is improving our ability to listen to the cosmos.
Andrea Ghez ’87 wins a share of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics
MIT alumna and two others honored for discoveries in black hole physics.
The wobbling shadow of the M87* black hole
Analysis of Event Horizon Telescope observations from 2009 to 2017 reveals turbulent evolution of the M87* black hole image.
Astronomers discover an Earth-sized “pi planet” with a 3.14-day orbit
The rocky world, with its baking-hot surface, is likely not habitable.
Astronomers may have found a signature of life on Venus
Evidence indicates phosphine, a gas associated with living organisms, is present in the habitable region of Venus’ atmosphere.
A “bang” in LIGO and Virgo detectors signals most massive gravitational-wave source yet
A binary black hole merger likely produced gravitational waves equal to the energy of eight suns.
An unexpected origin story for a lopsided black hole merger
Researchers suggest a novel process to explain the collision of a large black hole and a much smaller one.
Lava oceans may not explain the brightness of some hot super-Earths
By making their own lava and cooled glass, scientists find these materials likely aren’t responsible for the unexpected glow of some exoplanets.
An origin story for a family of oddball meteorites
Study suggests the rare objects likely came from an early planetesimal with a magnetic core.
In a first, astronomers watch a black hole’s corona disappear, then reappear
A colliding star may have triggered the drastic transformation.