Space

Artist's impression of an inner accretion flow and a jet from a supermassive black hole when it is actively feeding, for example, from a star that it recent tore apart.

Scientists detect radio echoes of a black hole feeding on a star

Signals suggest black hole emits a jet of energy proportional to the stellar material it gobbles up.

March 18, 2018

Artist's rendering of the universe's first, massive, blue stars in gaseous filaments, with the cosmic microwave background (CMB) at the edges. Using radio observations of the distant universe, NSF-funded researchers Judd Bowman of Arizona State University, Alan Rogers of MIT, and others discovered the influence of such early stars on primordial gas. The team inferred the stars' presence from dimmi...

Astronomers detect earliest evidence yet of hydrogen in the universe

Emitted just 180 million years after Big Bang, signal indicates universe was much colder than expected.

February 28, 2018

Rendering of the gas velocity in a thin slice of 100 kiloparsec thickness (in the viewing direction), centered on the second most massive galaxy cluster in the TNG100 calculation. Where the image is black, the gas is hardly moving, while white regions have velocities that exceed 1,000 kilometers per second. The image contrasts the gas motions in cosmic filaments against the fast chaotic motions tr...

Modeling the universe

MIT's Mark Vogelsberger and an international astrophysics team have created a new model pointing to black holes’ role in galaxy formation.

January 31, 2018

Noelle Bryan and Maria Zuber monitor their experiment while floating in zero gravity.

Prototypes for the new space age

The Media Lab Space Exploration Initiative shares results and next steps from its first zero gravity research mission.

January 26, 2018

This graphic shows atmospheric bow waves forming during the August 2017 eclipse over the continental United States.

Solar eclipse caused bow waves in Earth's atmosphere

MIT Haystack Observatory researchers find that the moon's shadow created long-predicted ionospheric bow waves during the August eclipse.

January 19, 2018

Aviation Week Network “20 Twenties” award recipient Alexa Aguilar is a grad student working in AeroAstro’s Space Telecommunications, Astronomy, and Radiation Laboratory (STAR Lab) on the Cubesat Lasercommunication Infrared CrosslinK mission. She assisted with an engineering model assembly that identified problem areas in the initial design.

Two from AeroAstro named to Aviation Week's “20 Twenties” for 2018

Grad students Alexa Aguilar and Arthur J. Brown receive honor that recognizes outstanding student academic performance, civic contributions, and research.

January 17, 2018

Five new planets have been discovered outside our solar system, all orbiting a sun-like star located within the constellation Aquarius, nearly 620 light years from Earth. The alien worlds are considered super-Earths, sizing in at two to three times larger than our own blue planet.

Citizen scientists discover five tightly packed exoplanets

The planetary system’s dense configuration gives clues to its formation

January 11, 2018

In the continuous-flow liquid-liquid separator developed by MIT spinout Zaiput Flow Technologies, liquid mix (blue and pink) is pumped through a feed tube to a porous polymer membrane (dotted line). One liquid (pink) is drawn to the surface of the membrane, while the other (blue) is repelled. An internal mechanical pressure controller maintains a slight pressure differential between the two sides ...

Drug manufacturing that’s out of this world

Continuous-flow chemistry device used for drug production could find use in long-duration space missions.

January 5, 2018

Artist’s conceptions of the most-distant supermassive black hole ever discovered, which is part of a quasar from just 690 million years after the Big Bang. It is surrounded by neutral hydrogen, indicating that it is from the period called the epoch of reionization, when the universe's first light sources turned on.

Scientists observe supermassive black hole in infant universe

Findings present a puzzle as to how such a huge object could have grown so quickly.

December 6, 2017

Magnetic reconnection is a complicated phenomenon that Nuno Loureiro, an associate professor of nuclear science and engineering and of physics at MIT, has been studying in detail for more than a decade. To explain the process, he gives a well-studied example: “If you watch a video of a solar flare” as it arches outward and then collapses back onto the sun’s surface, “that’s magnetic reco...

Study sheds light on turbulence in astrophysical plasmas

Theoretical analysis uncovers new mechanisms in plasma turbulence.

December 1, 2017

An engineer installs SensorSat, developed at Lincoln Laboratory, in the thermal-vacuum chamber used for testing the satellite's tolerance of conditions in space.

Monitoring activity in the geosynchronous belt

New ORS-5 SensorSat satellite developed at the MIT Lincoln Laboratory is fulfilling a critical need for situational awareness in space.

November 29, 2017

An artist’s conception of a view from within the Exocomet system KIC 3542116.

Scientists detect comets outside our solar system

Team of professional and citizen scientists identifies tails of comets streaking past a distant star.

October 25, 2017

Members of MIT's panel on the LIGO observation of a merger of neutron stars, (left to right) Anna Frebel, Salvatore Vitale, Nergis Mavalvala, Erik Katsavounidis, and Matthew Evans, pose for a photo at the Oct. 16 event.

MIT researchers discuss the new "multi-messenger" era of astrophysics research

Mavalvala, Evans, Frebel, Katsavounidis, and Vitale discuss the science behind LIGO's observations of a neutron star collision.

October 18, 2017

3Q: Scott Hughes on cosmic distances and the future of gravitational wave astronomy

Professor of physics describes our understanding of the expansion of the universe through “standard sirens.”

October 16, 2017

Artist’s illustration of two merging neutron stars. The rippling space-time grid represents gravitational waves that travel out from the collision, while the narrow beams show the bursts of gamma rays that are shot out just seconds after the gravitational waves. Swirling clouds of material ejected from the merging stars are also depicted. The clouds glow with visible and other wavelengths of lig...

LIGO and Virgo make first detection of gravitational waves produced by colliding neutron stars

Discovery marks first cosmic event observed in both gravitational waves and light.