LIGO scientists have successfully detected two black holes merging for the third time, reports Eric Moskowitz for The Boston Globe. MIT’s David Shoemaker, LIGO’s spokesperson, explains that researchers can use the information gathered by LIGO to get a, “more complete picture of Einstein’s general relativity and the population of these purely relativistic objects we call black holes.”
Writing for The New York Times, Dennis Overbye examines LIGO’s third successful detection of gravitational waves. “We are moving in a substantial way away from novelty towards where we can seriously say we are developing black-hole astronomy,” says David Shoemaker, director of the MIT LIGO Lab and spokesperson for the LIGO Scientific Collaboration.
CBS News reporter William Harwood writes that LIGO scientists have detected the merger of two black holes three billion light years away. David Shoemaker, director of the MIT LIGO Lab and the spokesperson for LIGO, explains that researchers detected, “the merging of black holes roughly 20 and 30 times the mass of our sun.”
MIT’s David Shoemaker, spokesperson for the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, speaks with Doyle Rice of USA Today about LIGO’s third successful detection of gravitational waves. “It is remarkable that humans can put together a story, and test it, for such strange and extreme events that took place billions of years ago and billions of light-years distant from us,” explains Shoemaker.
For the third time, researchers from the LIGO Scientific Collaboration have detected gravitational waves produced by the merger of two black holes, reports Irene Klotz for Reuters. “We’re really moving from novelty to a new observational science,” says MIT's David Shoemaker, spokesperson for the LIGO Scientific Collaboration.
Wall Street Journal reporter Robert Lee Hotz writes that scientists from the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) have successfully detected two black holes merging for the third time. MIT’s David Shoemaker, spokesperson for the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, explains that the discovery shows, “we are really moving to a new astronomy of gravitational waves.”
Dr. Phil Erickson of the Haystack Observatory speaks with Sarah Fecht of Popular Science about a study he co-authored showing that radio waves may protect the Earth’s atmosphere from space weather. “In the first hours to a couple of days into a solar storm, the waves seem to halt the electrons from coming in further,” says Erickson.
CBS News reporter William Harwood writes that MIT alumnus Jack Fisher, a NASA flight engineer, is on his way to the International Space Station for a planned 135-day mission. Harwood notes that Fisher is an Air Force colonel and former test pilot with a master’s degree in aeronautics and astronautics from MIT.
Vincent Fish, a research scientist at MIT’s Haystack Observatory, speaks with Hannah Osborne of Newsweek about the first attempt to capture an image of a black hole using the Event Horizon Telescope. “What we expect to see is an asymmetric image where you have a circular dark region,” says Fish. “That’s the black hole shadow.”
Astronomers are using data gathered by telescopes around the world to develop the first image of a black hole, according to the AFP. “All the data -- some 500 terabytes per station -- will be collected and flown on jetliners to the MIT Haystack Observatory in Massachusetts, where it will be processed by supercomputers.”
WGBH reporter Edgar Herwick visits the Haystack Observatory to learn about how astronomers are using radio telescopes to try to capture the first image of a black hole. "It’s a mind-blowing adventure, what the human mind and the human imagination can do with technology and science and creativity,” explains Haystack's Michael Hecht.
In an article for CBS News, Tracy Staedter spotlights a panel discussion focused on the challenges of exploring and potentially colonizing Mars, which was held during the New Space Age Conference at MIT.
MIT researchers have observed a black hole devouring a star, reports Torah Kachur for CBC News. After looking at about a year’s worth of data, researchers found that the “star was getting pulled apart and literally shredded into a debris stream that spiraled around the center of this black hole,” writes Kachur.
Elizabeth Howell writes for Scientific American that a team of researchers, including scientists from MIT, have observed that when a black hole consumes a star there is a burst of electromagnetic activity. Howell explains that the “new research suggests that interactions among the debris could generate the optical and UV emission.”
Calla Cofield writes for Scientific American that a grant will allow the HERA team to search for light from the universe’s first generation of stars. Prof. Jacqueline Hewitt, who is leading the grant, says it’s “remarkable we're designing instruments so we can detect what was happening 13 billion years ago.”