TESS discovers its first Earth-sized planet
Orbiting a nearby star, the new planet is the smallest identified so far by the TESS mission.
MIT celebrates 50th anniversary of historic moon landing
Symposium featuring former astronauts and other Apollo mission luminaries examines the program’s legacy.
Microgravity research after the International Space Station
Researchers say new facilities in space should be available to scientists from any country.
From the Marines to MIT
Brent Minchew has flown presidents and foreign dignitaries on Marine One. Today he studies how ice sheets evolve and respond to changing climate.
Study: Much of the surface ocean will shift in color by end of 21st century
Climate-driven changes in phytoplankton communities will intensify the blue and green regions of the world’s oceans.
MIT’s REXIS and Bennu’s watery surface
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx sample-return spacecraft, carrying MIT instrument, arrived at asteroid in December; now begins the science to select a sampling location.
TESS discovers its third new planet, with longest orbit yet
Measurements indicate a dense, gaseous, “sub-Neptune” world, three times the size of Earth.
Tiny satellites could be “guide stars” for huge next-generation telescopes
Researchers design CubeSats with lasers to provide steady reference light for telescopes investigating distant planets.
Laser-pointing system could help tiny satellites transmit data to Earth
Platform offers the precision that shoebox-sized CubeSats need to beam down hefty data packets.
3 Questions: MIT goes interstellar with Voyager 2
MIT Kavli's John Richardson describes MIT's role in the historic passing of the Voyager 2 craft past the heliopause and into the interstellar medium.
Arctic ice sets speed limit for major ocean current
Long-term melting may lead to release of huge volumes of cold, fresh water into the North Atlantic, impacting global climate.
Amy Finkelstein, Lisa Parks win 2018 MacArthur Fellowships
Health care economist and media studies scholar are the latest MIT faculty to nab prestigious “genius grant.”
For collecting weather data, tiny satellites measure up to billion-dollar cousins
Study finds shoebox-sized CubeSats gather weather data comparably to data collected by larger satellites.
Tiny ASTERIA satellite achieves a first for CubeSats
Measurement of an exoplanet transit demonstrates proof of concept that small spacecraft can perform high-precision photometry.