Space, astronomy and planetary science

High-flying flag

November 1, 2006

MIT logs 40 years of flight

October 4, 2006

NASA mission specialist Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper pauses for a moment during her Sept. 12 spacewalk, during which she assembled a major truss segment of the International Space Station.

1st alumna walks in space

October 4, 2006

MIT alumna to command space shuttle mission

September 27, 2006

Astronomers revise planet definition

Pluto is now a 'dwarf'

August 24, 2006

World astronomers have redefined what a planet is, resulting in a new view of our solar system as consisting of 12 planets. In this artist rendering, the planets are, from left: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Ceres, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, Charon and 2003 UB313. The new definitions resulted from work by an International Astronomical Union panel that included MIT Professor Richard Bi...

Astronomers proclaim Pluto is a planet

International group defines new planet category

August 16, 2006

An artist's rendering shows the baseball-sized probes being designed by MIT researchers for Mars exploration.

Team envisions exploring Mars with mini probes

July 17, 2006

Students help construct a prototype in April 2005 of one of the 500 'tiles' that will make up a new telescope in Australia. Each tile consists of 16 antennas. From left are Jamie Stevens, a graduate student at the University of Melbourne, now at University of Tasmania, and Judd Bowman, a graduate student in physics at MIT.

Telescope to probe early universe, more

July 5, 2006

MIT's SPHERES mini satellites rocketed into space on Monday, April 24, en route to the International Space Station. The SPHERES team tested the satellites in 2004 aboard a NASA plane used to simulate weightlessness. From left are team members Stephanie Chen, Steve Sell and Edmund Kong.

Mini MIT satellites rocketing to space station

April 25, 2006

This false-color image from three of NASA's Great Observatories provides one example of a star that died in a fiery supernova blast. Called Cassiopeia A, this supernova remnant is located 10,000 light-years away in the constellation Cassiopeia. At the center of this orb, visible only as a tiny turquoise dot, is the leftover corpse of the now-dead star, called a neutron star. The multi-hued shell o...

Fiery debris linked to strange new planets

April 5, 2006

MIT Assistant Professor Karl Berggren of electrical engineering and computer science works on nanowires in the lab.

MIT light detector may speed up interplanetary communications

March 20, 2006

IAP: Series explores faith of scientists

January 19, 2006

Star research earns physicist share of Bruno Rossi Prize

January 18, 2006

This image is an animation of a neutron star X-ray burst.

Scientists find black hole's 'point of no return'

January 9, 2006

This graphic depicts hot gas orbiting a black hole.

Spinning black hole leaves dent in space-time