Students take control of satellites on the International Space Station
200 high-school students participate in MIT’s annual Zero Robotics competition.
GRAIL reveals a battered lunar history
Twin spacecraft create a highly detailed gravity map of the moon, finding an interior pulverized by early impacts.
Scientists discover water ice on Mercury
Ice and organic material may have been carried to the planet by passing comets.
A burst of activity in the middle of the Milky Way
Researchers detect the brightest flare ever observed in our galaxy’s black hole.
Paintballs may deflect an incoming asteroid
With 20 years’ notice, paint pellets could cause an asteroid to veer off course.
MIT alums recount their Martian experiences
Several AeroAstro alumni return to campus to describe landing the Curiosity rover on Mars.
Department snapshot: Aeronautics and Astronautics
AeroAstro takes off in new directions — prompting a 50 percent spike in new undergraduate enrollments.
NASA-JPL director Charles Elachi talks about latest Mars mission
Curiosity is the most ambitious planetary rover mission ever, but it’s just one of the many exploratory projects JPL is undertaking.
Lincoln Laboratory-discovered asteroid needs a new name
NASA, in partnership with the lab and others, opens naming content to students.
River networks on Titan point to a puzzling geologic history
Findings suggest the surface of Saturn’s largest moon may have undergone a recent transformation.
Explained: Near-miss asteroids
What to do in the event of an asteroid streaking toward Earth? Activate the asteroid ‘fire drill.’
Newfound exoplanet may turn to dust
A planet’s dust cloud may explain strange patterns of light from its star.
