MIT professors Michael McDonald and Kristala Prather embody a form of mentorship defined not only by technical expertise, but by care. They remind us that the most lasting academic guidance is not only about advancing research, but about nurturing their students along the way. For McDonald’s students, his presence is one of deep empathy and

The following article is adapted from a joint press release issued today by MIT and the Giant Magellan Telescope. MIT is lending its support to the Giant Magellan Telescope, joining the international consortium to advance the $2.6 billion observatory in Chile. The Institute’s participation, enabled by a transformational gift from philanthropists Phillip (Terry) Ragon ’72 and

The following article is adapted from a press release issued by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) Laboratory. LIGO is funded by the National Science Foundation and operated by Caltech and MIT, which conceived and built the project. On Sept. 14, 2015, a signal arrived on Earth, carrying information about a pair of remote black

In the search for habitable exoplanets, atmospheric conditions play a key role in determining if a planet can sustain liquid water. Suitable candidates often sit in the “Goldilocks zone,” a distance that is neither too close nor too far from their host star to allow liquid water. With the launch of the James Webb Space

MIT Professor Emeritus Rainer Weiss ’55, PhD ’62, a renowned experimental physicist and Nobel laureate whose groundbreaking work confirmed a longstanding prediction about the nature of the universe, passed away on Aug. 25. He was 92. Weiss conceived of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) for detecting ripples in space-time known as gravitational waves, and

A fast radio burst is an immense flash of radio emission that lasts for just a few milliseconds, during which it can momentarily outshine every other radio source in its galaxy. These flares can be so bright that their light can be seen from halfway across the universe, several billion light years away. The sources

Water is essential for life on Earth. So, the liquid must be a requirement for life on other worlds. For decades, scientists’ definition of habitability on other planets has rested on this assumption. But what makes some planets habitable might have very little to do with water. In fact, an entirely different type of liquid

Astronomers at MIT, Columbia University, and elsewhere have used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to peer through the dust of nearby galaxies and into the aftermath of a black hole’s stellar feast. In a study appearing today in Astrophysical Journal Letters, the researchers report that for the first time, JWST has observed several tidal

Nanostructures are a stunning array of intricate patterns that are imperceptible to the human eye, yet they help power modern life. They are the building blocks of microchip transistors, etched onto grating substrates of space-based X-ray telescopes, and drive innovations in medicine, sustainability, and quantum computing. Since the 1970s, Henry “Hank” Smith, MIT professor emeritus

MIT astronomers have discovered a planet some 140 light-years from Earth that is rapidly crumbling to pieces. The disintegrating world is about the mass of Mercury, although it circles about 20 times closer to its star than Mercury does to the sun, completing an orbit every 30.5 hours. At such close proximity to its star,

MIT Professors Andrew Vanderburg and Ariel White have been honored as Committed to Caring for their attentiveness to student needs and for creating a welcoming and inclusive culture. For MIT graduate students, the Committed to Caring program recognizes those who go above and beyond. Professor Vanderburg “is incredibly generous with his time, resources, and passion

Seven MIT faculty and 21 additional MIT alumni are among 126 early-career researchers honored with 2025 Sloan Research Fellowships by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The recipients represent the MIT departments of Biology; Chemical Engineering; Chemistry; Civil and Environmental Engineering; Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences; Economics; Electrical Engineering and Computer Science; Mathematics; and Physics as well as the Music and

In early September 2015, Salvatore Vitale, who was then a research scientist at MIT, stopped home in Italy for a quick visit with his parents after attending a meeting in Budapest. The meeting had centered on the much-anticipated power-up of Advanced LIGO — a system scientists hoped would finally detect a passing ripple in space-time

The core of a massive cluster of galaxies appears to be pumping out far more stars than it should. Now researchers at MIT and elsewhere have discovered a key ingredient within the cluster that explains the core’s prolific starburst. In a new study published in Nature, the scientists report using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)

Highly energetic explosions in the sky are commonly attributed to gamma-ray bursts. We now understand that these bursts originate from either the merger of two neutron stars or the collapse of a massive star. In these scenarios, a newborn black hole is formed, emitting a jet that travels at nearly the speed of light. When

One supermassive black hole has kept astronomers glued to their scopes for the last several years. First came a surprise disappearance, and now, a precarious spinning act. The black hole in question is 1ES 1927+654, which is about as massive as a million suns and sits in a galaxy that is 270 million light-years away.

Fast radio bursts are brief and brilliant explosions of radio waves emitted by extremely compact objects such as neutron stars and possibly black holes. These fleeting fireworks last for just a thousandth of a second and can carry an enormous amount of energy — enough to briefly outshine entire galaxies. Since the first fast radio

MIT Professor Emeritus Hale Van Dorn Bradt PhD ’61 of Peabody, Massachusetts, formerly of Salem and Belmont, beloved husband of Dorothy A. (Haughey) Bradt, passed away on Thursday, Nov. 14 at Salem Hospital, surrounded by his loving family. He was 93.   Bradt, a longtime member of the Department of Physics, worked primarily in X-ray astronomy with NASA

MIT physicists have shown that it should be possible to create an exotic form of matter that could be manipulated to form the qubit (quantum bit) building blocks of future quantum computers that are even more powerful than the quantum computers in development today. The work builds on a discovery last year of materials that

Bridging Talents and Opportunities (BTO) held its second annual forum at the Stratton Student Center at MIT Oct. 11-12. The two-day event gathered over 500 participants, including high school students and their families, undergraduate students, professors, and leaders across STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics) fields. The forum sought to empower talented students from

The MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research (MKI) is a project lead for one of two finalist missions recently selected for NASA’s new Probe Explorers program. Working with collaborators at the University of Maryland and Goddard Space Flight Research Center, the team will produce a one-year concept study to launch the Advanced X-ray

Many black holes detected to date appear to be part of a pair. These binary systems comprise a black hole and a secondary object — such as a star, a much denser neutron star, or another black hole — that spiral around each other, drawn together by the black hole’s gravity to form a tight

A quasar is the extremely bright core of a galaxy that hosts an active supermassive black hole at its center. As the black hole draws in surrounding gas and dust, it blasts out an enormous amount of energy, making quasars some of the brightest objects in the universe. Quasars have been observed as early as

They planned to fly for four years and to get as far as Jupiter and Saturn. But nearly half a century and 15 billion miles later, NASA’s twin Voyager spacecraft have far exceeded their original mission, winging past the outer planets and busting out of our heliosphere, beyond the influence of the sun. The probes

A new study by MIT physicists proposes that a mysterious force known as early dark energy could solve two of the biggest puzzles in cosmology and fill in some major gaps in our understanding of how the early universe evolved. One puzzle in question is the “Hubble tension,” which refers to a mismatch in measurements

Watching crowds of people hustle along Massachusetts Avenue from her window seat in MIT’s student center, Dominika Ďurovčíková has just one wish. “What I would really like to do is convince a city to shut down their lights completely, apart from hospitals or whatever else needs them, just for an hour,” she says. “Let people

Hot Jupiters are some of the most extreme planets in the galaxy. These scorching worlds are as massive as Jupiter, and they swing wildly close to their star, whirling around in a few days compared to our own gas giant’s leisurely 4,000-day orbit around the sun. Scientists suspect, though, that hot Jupiters weren’t always so

MIT faculty members Nancy Kanwisher, Robert Langer, and Sara Seager are among eight researchers worldwide to receive this year’s Kavli Prizes. A partnership among the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, the Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research, and the Kavli Foundation, the Kavli Prizes are awarded every two years to “honor scientists for breakthroughs

Sarah Millholland, an assistant professor of physics at MIT and member of the Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, is the 2024 recipient of the Vera Rubin Early Career Award for her wide-ranging contributions to the formation and dynamics of extrasolar planetary systems. The American Astronomical Society’s Division on Dynamical Astronomy (DDA) recognized Millholland for her

Astronomers at MIT, NASA, and elsewhere have a new way to measure how fast a black hole spins, by using the wobbly aftermath from its stellar feasting. The method takes advantage of a black hole tidal disruption event — a blazingly bright moment when a black hole exerts tides on a passing star and rips it to shreds. As the

Astronomers at MIT, the University of Liège, and elsewhere have discovered a new planet orbiting a small cold star, a mere 55 light years away. The nearby planet is similar to Earth in its size and rocky composition, though that’s where the similarities end. Because this new world is likely missing an atmosphere. In a

MIT researchers, including several undergraduate students, have discovered three of the oldest stars in the universe, and they happen to live in our own galactic neighborhood. The team spotted the stars in the Milky Way’s “halo” — the cloud of stars that envelopes the entire main galactic disk. Based on the team’s analysis, the three stars formed

MIT astronomers have observed the elusive starlight surrounding some of the earliest quasars in the universe. The distant signals, which trace back more than 13 billion years to the universe’s infancy, are revealing clues to how the very first black holes and galaxies evolved. Quasars are the blazing centers of active galaxies, which host an

MIT faculty members Roger Levy, Tracy Slatyer, and Martin Wainwright are among 188 scientists, artists, and scholars awarded 2024 fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Working across 52 disciplines, the fellows were selected from almost 3,000 applicants for “prior career achievement and exceptional promise.” Each fellow receives a monetary stipend to pursue independent

Newton’s third law of motion states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. The basic physics of running involves someone applying a force to the ground in the opposite direction of their sprint.  For senior Olivia Rosenstein, her cross-country participation provides momentum to her studies as an experimental physicist working with

Class of 1958 Career Development Assistant Professor Erin Kara of the Department of Physics has been named as the recipient of the 2023-24 Harold E. Edgerton Faculty Achievement Award.   Established in 1982, the award is a tribute to the late Institute Professor Emeritus Harold E. Edgerton for his support for younger faculty members. This

At the heart of a far-off galaxy, a supermassive black hole appears to have had a case of the hiccups. Astronomers from MIT, Italy, the Czech Republic, and elsewhere have found that a previously quiet black hole, which sits at the center of a galaxy about 800 million light-years away, has suddenly erupted, giving off

If there is life in the solar system beyond Earth, it might be found in the clouds of Venus. In contrast to the planet’s blisteringly inhospitable surface, Venus’ cloud layer, which extends from 30 to 40 miles above the surface, hosts milder temperatures that could support some extreme forms of life. If it’s out there,

The MIT School of Science has announced nine postdocs and research scientists as recipients of the 2024 Infinite Expansion Award, which highlights extraordinary members of the MIT community. The following are the 2024 School of Science Infinite Expansion winners: Sarthak Chandra, a research scientist in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, was nominated by

Eight members of the MIT faculty are among 126 early-career researchers honored with 2024 Sloan Research Fellowships by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Representing the departments of Chemistry, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and Physics, and the MIT Sloan School of Management, the awardees will receive a two-year, $75,000 fellowship to advance their research. “Sloan

Star-shredding black holes are everywhere in the sky if you just know how to look for them. That’s one message from a new study by MIT scientists, appearing today in the Astrophysical Journal. The study’s authors are reporting the discovery of 18 new tidal disruption events (TDEs) — extreme instances when a nearby star is

By clocking the speed of stars throughout the Milky Way galaxy, MIT physicists have found that stars further out in the galactic disk are traveling more slowly than expected compared to stars that are closer to the galaxy’s center. The findings raise a surprising possibility: The Milky Way’s gravitational core may be lighter in mass,