Using the Hubble Space Telescope, Prof. Julien de Wit and his colleagues have “detected microflares coming from the TRAPPIST-1 star every hour or so that last for several minutes,” reports Alex Wilkins for New Scientist. “These tiny bursts of radiation appear to interfere with our ability to observe the light that passes through the planets’ atmospheres – if they exist – thwarting the main method of detecting what chemicals might be in any atmospheres,” explains Wilkins.
A study by researchers at MIT and elsewhere has proposed an alternative scenario to how life survived “Snowball Earth,” a “super ice age that froze the entire planet from poles to the equator” during the Cryogenian period, reports David Bressan for Forbes. “The scientists found that lifeforms could have survived the global freeze by thriving in watery oases on the surface,” explains Bressan.
A study by Prof. Noelle Selin has found that climate change will impact our ability to curb smoke and smog pollutants, reports Vivian La for WBUR. The researchers “used computer models to predict how air pollution will develop in the Eastern United States over the next few decades,” explains La. Selin underscored the importance of policies that reduce air pollution noting that: “what we’re doing to the atmosphere has impacts and it’s important not to roll these back.”
MIT astronomers have found evidence that a massive asteroid impact billions of years ago “may have briefly amplified the moon's old, weak magnetic field, leaving behind a magnetic imprint still detectable in lunar rocks,” reports Sharmila Kuthunur for Space.com. “While the moon once had a weak magnetic field generated by a small molten core, the team's research suggests it likely wouldn't have been strong enough on its own to magnetize surface rocks,” Kuthunur explains. “However, a massive asteroid impact may have changed that — at least briefly.”
Ars Technica reporter Jennifer Oulette writes that MIT researchers have found that a “large asteroid impact briefly boosted the Moon's early weak magnetic field—and that this spike is what is recorded in some lunar samples.”
Chronicle visits MIT to learn more about how the Institute “nurtures groundbreaking efforts, reminding us that creativity and science thrive together, inspiring future advancements in engineering, medicine, and beyond.” Prof. Julien de Wit and Research Scientist Artem Burdanov discuss their planetary defense efforts aimed at identifying small asteroids that could pose a threat to Earth, and Prof. Canan Dağdeviren demonstrates her work developing ultrasound devices to detect the earliest stages of breast cancer. Host Anthony Everett notes that: “Big ideas have a way of breaking out of conventional boundaries, just part of what makes MIT one giant laboratory of groundbreaking ideas."
Berly McCoy and Sushmita Pathak of NPR’s Short Wave spotlight research by postdoctoral associate Funing Li and his team on tornado occurrence. The researchers used “historical data to model and simulate the interaction between land and the atmosphere,” explains McCoy.
MIT has been named among the top-performing intuitions in the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2024, reports The Economic Times. MIT ranks “first in 12 subjects, maintaining its stronghold in fields like engineering, technology, and computer science,” explains Economic Times.
Prof. Richard Binzel speaks with The Naked Scientists host Chris Smith about near-earth objects (NEOs). “It’s the appearance that will distinguish what we call an asteroid and what we call a comet,” explains Binzel. “If it looks like a tiny little star, or star-like, it's an asteroid. But if it's fuzzy, we call it a comet. But generally speaking, they have two different origins. Asteroids tend to come in from the asteroid belt, which is between Mars and Jupiter. And comets tend to come from way out in the far reaches of our Solar System.”
Prof. Richard Binzel speaks with Salon reporter Matthew Rosza about his work creating the Torino Impact Hazard Scale, which measures the threat posed by space rocks. Previous measurements expressed “themselves in different ways, and that could be very confusing to the public,” says Binzel. “This was the motivation for finding a common communication system, a common scale that we could put into context any newly discovered object.”
Prof. Richard Binzel discusses how the risk posed by asteroid 2024 YR4 has now been significantly reduced based off new information gathered on the asteroid’s trajectory, reports Ashley Strickland for CNN. The rapid de-escalation in risk is thanks to the “unsung, meticulous work by astronomers” who conducted a steady stream of follow-up observations of the space rock using telescopes across the globe,” Binzel explains. “I’m pleasantly surprised that we could reduce the probability numbers so quickly.”
Prof. Richard Binzel speaks with Bloomberg reporter F.D. Flam about tracking asteroid 2024 YR4. “It might seem like things are getting more dangerous or more scary, but what's really happening is we're making ourselves more and more secure,” says Binzel.
Prof. Richard Binzel speaks with NBC News reporter Denise Chow about the Torino scale, a method he developed for categorizing the risks posed by near-Earth objects. “The idea was to be as transparent as possible about what astronomers know,” says Binzel of the idea behind the scale.
Prof. Richard Binzel speaks with Forbes reporter Jamie Carter about how astronomers are working to determine the trajectory of asteroid 2024 YR4. “Eventually, we expect the probability to fall to zero and reach Torino Scale 0 (all clear!),” says Binzel. “The uncertainty region, which looks like a long spaghetti of fettuccine string, shrinks as we get tracking data over a longer and longer piece of the asteroid’s orbit.”
Prof. Richard Binzel, creator of the Torino scale that NASA uses to measure the threat of incoming objects, speaks with Brandon Truitt of CBS Boston about his quest to track 2024 YR4, an asteroid that astronomers are closely monitoring to see how close it might come to Earth in 2032. “As we get more and more measurements, we keep tracking the asteroid, that uncertainty window, that broad range of where it could go it's going to shrink and shrink," says Binzel. "Until the Earth falls outside of that pathway, we're going to see these probabilities bounce around."