News Category: MKI News

Tien Sun Chang (February 28, 1931 – January 20, 2024) Tien Sun Chang, a formidable figure in the field of space physics who made significant contributions to our understanding of space plasma complexity, died January 20, 2024, in Troy, NY. He was 92.   For over three decades, Dr. Chang, also known as “Tom,” was

NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and other telescopes have identified a supermassive black hole that has torn apart one star and is now using that stellar wreckage to pummel another star or smaller black hole, as described in our latest press release. This research helps connect two cosmic mysteries and provides information about the environment around some of the bigger types of

Low-latency gravitational wave alert products and their performance at the time of the fourth LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA observing run We present the low-latency alert infrastructure performance and data products based on an end-to-end MDC designed to prepare for O4. We aim to provide a useful reference for the broader astronomy community following up on GW alerts, and

Michael Calzadilla grew up in Tampa, Florida. As a first-generation college student, he earned his bachelor’s degree in physics from the University of South Florida in 2015. He subsequently crossed the pond to complete a master’s degree in astronomy as a Gates Cambridge scholar under the guidance of Professor Andrew Fabian at the University of

Prof. Edmund Bertschinger shares his perspective on the importance of science activism and diversity in STEM Professor Edmund Bertschinger is both an astrophysics professor who researches gravitation and chaotic dynamics and an affiliated faculty member in the Women’s & Gender Studies (WGS) Program. Bertschinger served as MIT’s inaugural Institute Community and Equity Officer from 2013 to 2018. The

When two black holes spiral inward and collide, they shake the very fabric of space, producing ripples in space-time that can travel for hundreds of millions of light-years. Since 2015, scientists have been observing these so-called gravitational waves to help them study fundamental questions about the cosmos, including the origin of heavy elements such as

“They’re not just ornamental. They’re not just sitting there passively,” Kara says. “They’re actually dictating how the galaxy evolves and why the galaxy looks the way that it does.” An observational astrophysicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Erin Kara visits mind-bending territory. Like an astronaut in the film Interstellar, she explores the regions near

Eighteen new tidal disruption events (TDEs)—which are huge bursts of energy released as a star is shredded by a black hole—were spied by MIT scientists, according to a new study in The Astrophysical Journal. This finding more than doubles the number of TDEs that scientists have discovered, and includes the closest one found to date. Tidal

Fleeting blasts of energy from space, known as fast radio bursts (FRBs), are a cosmic enigma. A Canadian-led international team of researchers has published new findings suggesting that supernovae are the predominant contributors to forming sources that eventually produce FRBs. “Fast radio bursts are one of astronomy’s greatest mysteries,” said lead author Mohit Bhardwaj, a

Astronomers have completed the largest and most detailed study of what triggers stars to form in the universe’s biggest galaxies, using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and other telescopes. They were surprised to find that the conditions for stellar conception in these exceptionally massive galaxies have not changed over the last ten billion years. “What’s surprising

“DON’T be excited,” says Sara Seager. She is talking about putative signs of life from observations of the atmospheres of other worlds, and her words are a sobering counterbalance to hyperbolic headlines. Of course, a genuine sighting of the signature of life beyond Earth would be anything but humdrum. On the contrary, it would be momentous.

ROLLA, Mo. – Dr. Frederick K. Baganoff, research scientist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, challenged Missouri University of Science and Technology Ph.D. graduates to “dare mighty things.” Baganoff spoke during the Missouri S&T Ph.D. commencement ceremony, held at 6 p.m. Friday, Dec. 15. He gave graduates three pieces of advice: quickly learn from mistakes, ask

The 10 Breakthroughs were selected by a panel of Physics World editors, who sifted through hundreds of research updates published on the website this year across all fields of physics. In addition to having been reported in Physics World in 2023, selections must meet the following criteria: Significant advance in knowledge or understanding Importance of

Her work doesn’t stop there… “Where did all this come from? How did it all get started?” These are the questions that Dr. Nergis Mavalvala asks about the universe. It’s not the meaning-of-life stuff in the traditional sense, but more of how everything around us came to be. These are the questions we all have, but for

Planets with radii between that of the Earth and Neptune (hereafter referred to as “sub-Neptunes”) are found in close-in orbits around more than half of all Sun-like stars [1, 2]. Yet, their composition, formation, and evolution remain poorly understood [3]. The study of multi-planetary systems offers an opportunity to investigate the outcomes of planet formation

Scientists expect to see 65 percent more collisions between massive objects like black holes To look for gravitational waves, LIGO researchers rely on laser light that moves in a detector between mirrors placed four kilometers apart. But light is subject to a version of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle that ensures the more you know about

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are extragalactic transient flashes of radio waves with typical durations of milliseconds. FRBs have been shown, however, to present a wide range of timescales: some show sub-microsecond sub-bursts while others last up to a few seconds. Probing FRBs on a range of timescales is crucial for understanding their emission physics, how to

“…on TRAPPIST-1 C in latest finding, as was the case on TRAPPIST-1 B. The JWST, however, could offer tantalizing glimpses into the atmospheres of distant exoplanets orbiting stars. With the very limited information that can be gleaned, scientists are trying to analyze the chemical barcode of transiting planets to determine the possibility of existence of

This artist’s concept shows what exoplanet K2-18 b could look like based on science data. K2-18 b, an exoplanet 8.6 times as massive as Earth, orbits the cool dwarf star K2-18 in the habitable zone and lies 120 light-years from Earth. A new investigation with NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope into K2-18 b has revealed

It was in 1967 that what was until then referred to as a ‘gravitationally completely collapsed object’ was aptly dubbed a ‘black hole’. But the mystery of what lies at the center of a black hole endures! The answer lies in mind-bending physics calculations, endless thought experiments, and seriously entertaining the possibility that the universe

In mid-June, about 150 astronomers gathered at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for Eilers’ JWST “First Light” conference. Not quite a year had passed since JWST started sending images back to Earth. And just as Eilers had anticipated, the telescope was already reshaping astronomers’ understanding of the cosmos’s first billion years. Like a time machine,

…astrophysicist Jane Rigby talks about the beauty of space, the possibility of life on other planets, and how the Webb sees hidden parts of the universe. Rigby works at nasa Goddard Space Flight Center, in Greenbelt, Maryland, and has been part of the James Webb Space Telescope team since 2010, as an astrophysicist and, since June, as

Astronomers used the afterglow of the big bang, hungry supermassive black holes, and space telescopes to find a rare ‘relaxed’ galaxy cluster. The early universe was a stressful place for galaxies. Globs of tens to hundreds of neighboring galaxies, called galaxy clusters, would share a communal pool of hot gas—but not without drama. There was always another

Astronomers have discovered the most distant “relaxed” galaxy cluster to date – the farthest cluster ever spotted that is not being disrupted by violent collisions with other clusters of galaxies. This finding is paving the way to learning how and when some of these gigantic structures form and why the universe looks like it does

Things are about to change in a supermassive way in the world of astrophysics. An international team of scientists have discovered evidence for a new type of signal they have long searched for—one that will give us a greater understanding into black holes, and the origins of galaxies and the universe as we know it.

In the early universe, the gas between stars and galaxies was opaque – energetic starlight could not penetrate it. But 1 billion years after the big bang, the gas had become completely transparent. Why? New data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has pinpointed the reason: The galaxies’ stars emitted enough light to heat and

TOI-4010 is a metal-rich K dwarf star that hosts three transiting exoplanets detected by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), which is based at MIT. The planets were initially detected as part of the “TESS Faint Star Search”, which has uncovered almost 3000 TESS planet candidates to date. We confirmed all three planets using extensive

A large team of astronomers, including several from the MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research and the MIT Department of Physics, have collaborated on work to decipher the origin and nature of FRBs. Their recent open-access publication in The Astrophysical Journal reports the discovery of 25 new repeating FRB sources, doubling the known number of these

Astronomers have discovered an Earth-sized exoplanet, or world beyond our solar system, that may be carpeted with volcanoes. Called LP 791-18 d, the planet could undergo volcanic outbursts as often as Jupiter’s moon Io, the most volcanically active body in our solar system. They found and studied the planet using data from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet

The diverse elements of the periodic table are synthesized from primordial hydrogen and helium during the lives and deaths of massive stars.  By combining observations at infrared and millimeter-wave bands, our international team has identified some of the earliest direct instances of these synthesized elements “leaking” out of nascent galaxies in the very early universe.

The European Research Council has awarded almost 9 million euros to MIT’s Nergis Mavalvala, the University of Vienna’s Philip Walther and Piotr Chruściel, and the University of Munich LMU’s Georgi Dvali to investigate the influence of gravity on light quanta. The ERC Synergy Grant “GRAVITES” will perform experiments at the interface of quantum physics and general relativity. GRAVITES aims to

Anna-Christina Eilers, a NASA Hubble Postdoctoral Fellow with the MIT Kavli Institute, has won three prestigious awards for her thesis research at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy. In her thesis work, Eilers studied extremely luminous galaxies called quasars that exist 13 billion light years from Earth. Light from these quasars takes so long to

Two graduate physics students at the MIT Kavli Institute have received $70,000 MathWorks Fellowships. The students, Nicholas Demos and Wenxuan Jia, work on projects related to the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) in the lab of Matthew Evans, the MIT MathWorks Professor of Physics. “It’s a great thing for both of them and our lab