University observatories like MIT's Wallace Astrophysical Observatory play a key role in providing students hands-on astronomy experience and important research opportunities that larger observatories may not have time for.
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ALT A time-lapse photo of a telescope dome at the Wallace Astrophysical Observatory. Star tracks, as well as firefly tracks, can be seen in the sky.
Congrats to EAPS grad student Angelina Serafini for receiving a Dwornik Award for best grad poster presentation at this year's Lunar and Planetary Science Conference! She used moon samples to constrain the strength of the ancient lunar magnetic field.
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ALT Angelina Serafini standing and smiling with her scientific poster at a conference.
Is there another period in Earth's past where the climate changed as quickly as it is today? Geologic records like ice cores and ocean sediments show that the last 50 years warmed faster than any other 50-year period in at least 2,000 years.
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While the concrete is hot today in Cambridge, it's not to blame for rising global temps. Urban heat islands only change estimates of how much the world has warmed since 1900 by 0.01°C. Cities don't cover enough of the earth to compete with CO2 emissions.
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A new identification algorithm named JetLag, created by former EAPS Postdoc Louis Rivoire, uses a fresh approach to jet stream identification by looking at how these fast winds travel through the atmosphere over time.
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ALT A rendering of a planetary atmosphere, showing a jet stream in shades of maroon.
Congrats to EAPS Professor Ben Weiss on being elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences! He and EAPS alumni Cynthia Ebinger join an outstanding class of leaders from academia, the arts, industry, public policy and research.
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ALT Professor Ben Weiss
New model PlanetWaves predicts wave behavior on other planets. It found that winds on Titan could stir up huge waves on its light liquid hydrocarbon lakes, while on lava planets like 55-Cancri e it would take hurricane-force winds to move the lake surface.
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Researchers at MIT are revealing new populations of asteroids, including smaller ones that could pose a danger to our space infrastructure. Prof Julien de Wit and research scientists Artem Burdanov and Saverio Cambioni break it down on GBH
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ALT An asteroid speeds towards the moon.
EAPS professor Julien de Wit is this year's keynote speaker for Beyond the Cradle, where leaders, researchers and visionaries across the space industry come together to envision a new space age. MIT community members can register FOR FREE: buff.ly/9ByJA1d
Fast-food ocean: rising ocean temperatures due to climate change may change the nutritional value of phytoplankton from protein-rich to carb-heavy. It's unclear how this will transmit throughout the marine food web.
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ALT A cartoon cereal box is called “Phyt-O’s: the phytoplankton of the future” and shows a happy plankton with a bowl of plankton. Bubbles say “Carbs!” and “Protein?!”