TESS, a NASA mission led and operated by MIT, has discovered over 5,000 planets candidates outside of our solar system, reports Ed Browne for Newsweek. “This time last year, TESS had found just over 2,400 TOIs (TESS Objects of Interest),” says postdoctoral associate Michelle Kunimoto. “Today, TESS has reached more than twice that number – a huge testament to the mission and all the teams scouring the data for new planets.”
Scientists have discovered “X-particles” in the aftermath of collisions produced in the Large Hadron Collider, which could shed light on the structure of these elusive particles, reports Becky Ferreira for Vice. “X particles can yield broader insights about the type of environment that existed in those searing and turbulent moments after the Big Bang,” writes Ferreira.
Popular Science reporter Rahul Rao writes that researchers from MIT and Harvard have whipped up quantum tornadoes, “the latest demonstration of quantum mechanics—the strange code of laws that governs the universe at its finest, subatomic scales.”
Science Friday host Ira Flatow spotlights how Prof. Scott Hughes has shifted the wavelengths of gravitational waves into the range of human hearing, creating an audible experience that allows listeners to experience the “ripples in space-time made by the tremendous mass of colliding black holes.”
Researchers from MIT and Harvard have directly observed a quantum tornado, reports Elizabeth Gamillo for Smithsonian. “Scientists observed the tornado-like behavior after trapping and spinning a cloud of one million sodium atoms using lasers and electromagnets at 100 rotations per second,” writes Gamillo.
Renaldo Webb ’10 founded PetPlate, a fresh-cooked pet food company that delivers personalized meal plans directly to pet owners, reports Igor Bosilkcovski for Forbes. “Webb got the idea for the company when he worked with pet food companies as a consultant, and was able to realize that the low quality ingredients in the pet food had been the underlying reason for many health issues with pets, particularly obesity,” writes Bosilkcovski.
MIT researchers are developing innovations aimed at improving Covid-19 diagnostics, including an atomic-level test designed to increase testing accuracy, reports Steven Zeitchik for The Washington Post. Professor James Collins and his team are developing “a mask that uses freeze-dried technology to detect the coronavirus.”
Popular Science reporter Nikita Amir writes that a new study co-authored by MIT researchers finds has identified a chemical pathway by which life could make a home for itself in Venus’ toxic clouds by producing ammonia. “Life on Venus, if it exists, is not like life on Earth,” says research affiliate Janusz Petkowski. “It’s life as we don’t know it. The only question is, to what degree it is different?”
Prof. Sara Seager speaks with New York Times reporter Dennis Overybye about the James Webb Telescope. Seager is part of a team that is planning to use the telescope to observe an exoplanet named Trappist-1e to determine if the planet has an atmosphere.
Axios reporter Miriam Kramer notes that scientists from MIT and other institutions are planning a mission to probe the atmosphere of Venus for any potential signs of life. The probe “will come equipped with a laser designed to help it figure out what kind of chemistry is happening in droplets in Venus' atmosphere during a three-minute flight through the planet's clouds,” writes Kramer.
Newsweek reporter Robert Lea spotlights how MIT researchers traced the source of a bright blue cosmic explosion to the birth of a neutron star or black hole. “We have likely discovered the birth of a compact object in a supernova” says research scientists Dheeraj “DJ” Pasham. “This happens in normal supernovae, but we haven’t seen it before because it’s such a messy process. We think this new evidence opens possibilities for finding baby black holes or baby neutron stars.”
A number of MIT researchers were named as top ten finalists for the Physics World 2021 Breakthrough of the Year. Prof. Wolfgang Ketterle and his colleagues were honored for their work in “independently observing Pauli blocking in ultracold gases of fermionic atoms” and astronomers with the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration were honored for “creating the first image showing the polarization of light in the region surrounding a supermassive black hole.”
Marcos Berríos ‘06, Christina Birch PhD ‘15 and Christopher Williams PhD ’12 have been selected as part of NASA’s 2021 astronaut candidate class, reports WBUR’s Bill Chappell. “Alone, each candidate has ‘the right stuff,’ but together they represent the creed of our country: E pluribus unum – out of many, one,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.
Marcos Berríos ‘06, Christina Birch PhD ‘15, Christopher Williams PhD ‘12 are among the ten astronauts selected for the 2021 NASA astronaut class, reports Breanna Kovatch for The Boston Globe. “The class of astronauts were selected from among 12,000 candidates and is the first class in four years,” writes Kovatch.
Graduate student Olumakinde “Makinde” Ogunnaike and Josh Sariñana PhD ’11 join Boston Public Radio to discuss The Poetry of Science, an initiative that brought together artists and scientists of color to help translate complex scientific research through art and poetry. “Science is often a very difficult thing to penetrate,” says Sariñana. “I thought poetry would be a great way to translate the really abstract concepts into more of an emotional complexity of who the scientists actually are.”