Study: Life’s building blocks are surprisingly stable in Venus-like conditions
Results suggest the clouds of Venus could be hospitable for some forms of life.
Three MIT alumni graduate from NASA astronaut training
Marcos Berríos ’06, Christina Birch PhD ’15, and Christopher Williams PhD ’12, now eligible for spaceflight assignments, encourage MIT students to apply for the next astronaut class.
Study determines the original orientations of rocks drilled on Mars
The “oriented” samples, the first of their kind from any planet, could shed light on Mars’ ancient magnetic field.
Astronomers spot 18 black holes gobbling up nearby stars
The detections more than double the number of known tidal disruption events in the nearby universe.
Study: Stars travel more slowly at Milky Way’s edge
The findings suggest our galaxy’s core may contain less dark matter than previously estimated.
Researchers release open-source space debris model
The MIT Orbital Capacity Assessment Tool lets users model the long-term future space environment.
A carbon-lite atmosphere could be a sign of water and life on other terrestrial planets, MIT study finds
A low carbon abundance in planetary atmospheres, which the James Webb Space Telescope can detect, could be a signature of habitability.
MIT in the media: 2023 in review
MIT community members made headlines with key research advances and their efforts to tackle pressing challenges.
Philip Erickson named director of MIT Haystack Observatory
Associate director and geospace lead scientist to succeed Colin Lonsdale.
How to be an astronaut
Astronaut Woody Hoburg ’08 shares insights and advice with students in his first visit to campus since joining NASA.
Everything, everywhere all at once
Cosmologist and MLK Scholar Morgane König uses gravitational waves to study the universe’s origins, inflation, and present trajectory.
ILLUMA-T launches to the International Space Station
This laser communications terminal, developed at Lincoln Laboratory, aims to transmit data at high rates from the ISS to ground stations via NASA’s first two-way laser communications relay system.
The Beaver visits Father Sky: Meet MIT’s First Nations Launch team
MIT Doya blasted their first rocket to a height of 1,290 meters, placing second at the 2023 First Nations Launch contest. The team is now gearing up for a 2024 launch.
Bright flash leads astronomers to a heavy-metal factory 900 million light years away
Using multiple observatories, astronomers directly detect tellurium in two merging neutron stars.
