Astronomers discover a planet that’s rapidly disintegrating, producing a comet-like tail
The small and rocky lava world sheds an amount of material equivalent to the mass of Mount Everest every 30.5 hours.
MIT Lincoln Laboratory is a workhorse for national security
The US Air Force and MIT renew contract for operating the federally funded R&D center, a long-standing asset for defense innovation and prototyping.
Lincoln Laboratory honored for technology transfer of hurricane-tracking satellites
Federal Laboratory Consortium award recognizes excellence in commercializing small microwave sounders expected to improve weather forecasts.
Study: Climate change will reduce the number of satellites that can safely orbit in space
Increasing greenhouse gas emissions will reduce the atmosphere’s ability to burn up old space junk, MIT scientists report.
MIT engineers develop a fully 3D-printed electrospray engine
Ideal for propelling tiny satellites, the lightweight devices could be produced on board a spacecraft and cost much less than traditional thrusters.
X-ray flashes from a nearby supermassive black hole accelerate mysteriously
Their source could be the core of a dead star that’s teetering at the black hole’s edge, MIT astronomers report.
Monitoring space traffic
AeroAstro PhD student Sydney Dolan uses an interdisciplinary approach to develop collision-avoidance algorithms for satellites.
Professor Emeritus Hale Van Dorn Bradt, an X-ray astronomy pioneer, dies at 93
Longtime MIT faculty member used X-ray astronomy to study neutron stars and black holes and led the All-Sky Monitor instrument on NASA's Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer.
New AI tool generates realistic satellite images of future flooding
The method could help communities visualize and prepare for approaching storms.
Asteroid grains shed light on the outer solar system’s origins
A weak magnetic field likely pulled matter inward to form the outer planetary bodies, from Jupiter to Neptune.
AXIS mission selected as NASA Astrophysics Probe competition finalist
MIT Kavli Institute scientists and collaborators will produce a concept study to launch a $1B experiment to investigate the X-ray universe.
Study: Early dark energy could resolve cosmology’s two biggest puzzles
In the universe’s first billion years, this brief and mysterious force could have produced more bright galaxies than theory predicts.
Scientists find a human “fingerprint” in the upper troposphere’s increasing ozone
Knowing where to look for this signal will help researchers identify specific sources of the potent greenhouse gas.
Astronomers spot a highly “eccentric” planet on its way to becoming a hot Jupiter
The planet’s wild orbit offers clues to how such large, hot planets take shape.