Researchers at MIT, including postdoctoral associate Marc Hon and research scientist Avi Shporer, have discovered a new disintegrating planet approximately 140 light-years away from Earth, reports Sarah Mesdjian for The Boston Globe. “The planet got so close to its star that the heat started evaporating its surface,” says Shporer. “The planet is not big enough to hold onto that material with its gravity.”
MIT astronomers have discovered a planet disintegrating at a rapid pace, reports Xinhua. “Roughly the size of Mercury, the planet orbits its host star at an extremely close distance - about 20 times closer than Mercury is to the Sun - completing a full orbit every 30.5 hours,” explains Xinhua. “Due to this intense proximity, researchers believe the planet is likely covered in molten magma, which is vaporizing and streaming into space.”
MIT researchers have uncovered BD+05 4868 Ab, “a planet that is disintegrating into boiling chunks of rock and evaporating minerals,” reports Andrew Paul for Popular Science. “Astronomers have only identified three disintegrating planets before BD+05 4868 Ab, all of which were detected over a decade ago using data collected by NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope,” explains Paul. “The newest find is the most violent example yet, with the longest tail and deepest transits of the four known examples.”
Astronomers at MIT have discovered a rapidly disintegrating planet “with a comet-like tail,” reports Ian Randall for Newsweek. “The planet is orbiting so close to its star that researchers estimate it has a surface temperature around 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit, giving it a molten surface that is boiling off material into space, where this cools to form a long, dusty tail,” explains Randall.
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."
Prof. Dava Newman, director of the MIT Media Lab and former NASA deputy director, speaks with Blake Burman of NewsNation’s The Hill about how long-duration stays in space can affect the human body and how NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore will reacclimate to Earth’s gravity. “Gravity is something! When you haven’t been in gravity” for nine months, Newman explains, “it’s going to take a week or two, it takes a month until you really get your motor control back. So just slow adaptation now.”
Ariel Ekblaw SM ’17, PhD ’20, founder of the MIT Space Exploration Initiative, joins WCVB-TV to discuss the successful return of NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, and the impact of nine months in space on the human body. "When you're living in a long-duration microgravity mission, you do lose some of your muscle mass,” Ekblaw explains. “Your heart weakens because it's not having to pump your blood against the force of gravity. And even funny things like your eyesight can change because the shape of your eyeball is a little different in microgravity.”
Researchers from MIT have “identified genes that the tuberculous bacteria rely on to survive and spread,” reports Allison DeAngelis for STAT. “Until now, very little was known about how tuberculous bacteria survived temperature changes, oxygen levels, humidity, and other environmental factors during the journey from one person’s lungs to another’s,” explains DeAngelis.
Ariel Ekblaw, principal investigator for the “To the Moon to Stay” mission and a visiting scientist at the MIT Media Lab, speaks with Chaiel Schaffel of WBZ News Radio about the three payloads MIT engineers built for a recent mission to the moon. Of the AstroAnt rover that Ekblaw and her team developed for spacecraft assembly and external servicing, she explains: "What we want to do in the future is send hundreds or thousands that will crawl on the outside of space stations, maybe crawl on the outside of a lunar habitat, and do the inspections that would be really risky for humans to do."
Researchers at MIT have sent three payloads into space, including the AstroAnt, a small robotic device developed to help monitor spaceship conditions, reports Kenneth Chang for The New York Times. The AstroAnt rover is about the size of a “Hot Wheels” toy car and can measure a lunar rover’s temperature and communicate via a wireless Bluetooth connection. “MIT researchers envision that swarms of AstroAnts could be used to perform various tasks in space,” Chang explains.
Orlando Sentinel reporter Richard Tribou spotlights the AstroAnt, a small robotic device developed by MIT researchers to monitor spaceship conditions during lunar missions. The device can wheel around the roof of a lunar rover “to take temperature readings and monitor its operation.”
MIT researchers developed a small robotic rover called the AstroAnt and a depth-mapping camera for use in monitoring spaceship conditions during space missions, reports Richard Luscombe for The Guardian. The AstroAnt is designed to “eventually assist in diagnostic and repair tasks for spacecraft during lunar missions,” explains Luscombe.
Prof. Sara Seager, postdoctoral fellow Iaroslav Iakubivskyi and Claire Isabel Webb PhD '20 have designed Phainoterra, an imaginary planet “with a habitable sulfuric acid-based biochemistry” using “extensive scientific research and cross-checking against known physical precepts,” reports Leslie Katz for Forbes. The creation of Phainoterra is a part of “Proxima Kosmos, a new project that unites scientists, including one from NASA, with designers and sci-fi writers to create a speculative solar system consistent with the laws of astronomy and physics.”
Boston Globe reporter Hiawatha Bray spotlights how MIT researchers developed a thumb-sized rover and a depth-mapping camera, technologies that will be used on a mission to the south pole of the Moon. The mini rover, dubbed AstroAnt, could one day be used to “patrol the exteriors of lunar probes, satellites, or space stations. Some might use cameras to spot meteorite damage, while others could apply sealants to prevent air or fuel leaks.”
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.”