Lincoln Laboratory technologies win seven R&D 100 Awards for 2025
Inventions that protect US service members, advance computing, and enhance communications are recognized among the year's most significant new products.
Astronomers discover star-shredding black holes hiding in dusty galaxies
Unlike active galaxies that constantly pull in surrounding material, these black holes lie dormant, waking briefly to feast on a passing star.
Island rivers carve passageways through coral reefs
Research shows these channels allow seawater and nutrients to flow in and out, helping to maintain reef health over millions of years.
New optical sensing system will improve space domain awareness
MIT Lincoln Laboratory developed the system, launched recently aboard the QZSS-HP satellite, for a collaborative effort between the US Space Force and Japan.
Deploying a practical solution to space debris
Researchers share the design and implementation of an incentive-based Space Sustainability Rating.
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.