A supermassive black hole lies at the heart of every galaxy, including the Milky Way. When a black hole is active, it pulls material in as a whirpool of high-temperature gas and dust. As this cosmic material piles up and falls onto a black hole, it lights up its vicinity, radiating a huge amount of energy. […]
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This April, humanity had front-row seats to space as the Artemis II Orion spacecraft transmitted crystal-clear footage of its historic journey around the moon over more than 250,000 miles back to Earth at speeds on par with those of home internet connections. The livestreaming of high-definition videos and high-resolution photos of the moon and Earth […]
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MIT engineers are testing a new propulsion system that combines the power and speed of conventional chemical thrusters with the precision and fuel-efficiency of electrical thrusters. The system could enable the design of nimbler, more flexible small satellites, which could perform both fast, powerful maneuvers and slower, precise adjustments, depending on the mission and moment […]
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For many graduate students, waking up at noon after a 4 a.m. bedtime is a sign of a night well spent. For a group of MIT students, it was simply the start of their workday — timed not to the sun, but to the aurora. Their goal was simple: to study plasma phenomena using the […]
Read MoreDave Limp told an all-hands meeting that external funding is now on the table, weeks before SpaceX is expected to price the largest IPO in history at $1.75tn. The launch-cadence target is 100 a year. The cumulative bill so far is roughly $28bn. Blue Origin is preparing to take outside money for the first time […]
Read MoreDark matter is thought to make up most of the matter in the universe, but the only way it interacts with its surroundings is through gravity. If two colliding black holes spiral through a dense region of dark matter and merge, gravitational waves rippling across space and time could carry an imprint of that dark […]
Read MoreTL;DR Rocket Lab’s Q1 revenue grew 64 per cent to a record 200 million dollars, its backlog reached 2.2 billion, and its stock hit a record high. The only thing that has not launched is Neutron, the rocket the valuation depends on. Rocket Lab’s revenue grew 64 per cent, its stock hit a record high, […]
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Across the Milky Way galaxy, a planetary odd couple is circling a star some 190 light years from Earth. A normally “lonely” hot Jupiter is sharing space with a mini-Neptune, in a rare and unlikely pairing that’s had astronomers puzzled since the system’s discovery in 2020. Now MIT scientists have caught a glimpse into the […]
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A new immersive sound installation at Oulu Cathedral, Finland, brings the research of MIT astrophysicist and associate professor of physics Kiyoshi Masui into a striking sensory form, transforming more than 4,000 cosmic signals into spatial audio. With its grand opening on April 4, “The Logos” project invites visitors to experience deep-space phenomena not as distant […]
Read MoreSummary: SpaceX’s confidential S-1 pre-IPO filing warns that its orbital AI data centre plans “involve significant technical complexity and unproven technologies, and may not achieve commercial viability,” contradicting Elon Musk’s January claim at Davos that space-based AI was a “no-brainer” achievable within two to three years. The filing comes as SpaceX targets a $1.75 trillion […]
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Chances are, you’ve already used a satellite today. Satellites make it possible for us to stream our favorite shows, call and text a friend, check weather and navigation apps, and make an online purchase. Satellites also monitor the Earth’s climate, the extent of agricultural crops, wildlife habitats, and impacts from natural disasters. As we’ve found […]
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On a calm day, a light breeze might barely ripple the surface of a lake on Earth. But on Saturn’s largest moon Titan, a similar mild wind would kick up 10-foot-tall waves. This otherworldly behavior is one prediction from a new wave model developed by scientists at MIT. The model is the first to capture […]
Read MoreAstroport Space Technologies and Vermeer Corporation have announced a collaboration to adapt industrial surface mining equipment for autonomous lunar construction, a partnership that both companies frame as delivering the heavy machinery, or “Lunar Iron,” needed to build a permanent human presence on the Moon. The announcement, made at the 20th International Conference on Engineering, Science, […]
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All the ingredients to leave the first layer of the atmosphere were laying on a picnic table. T-minus 30 minutes before launch from the New York Catskills, students in MIT’s reborn 16.00 (Introduction to Aerospace Engineering) course tore open hand warmers to fight the December morning chill. One hot pack for cold hands. One for […]
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Trump: “This was central– this was right– you would call it central casting if were doing a movie, for location.” pic.twitter.com/NtyieAkgCP — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 6, 2026 Later, Trump’s account of the late-night mission was barely coherent, as he mentioned how a rescue plane was on a “farm without a runaway” with “wet sand.” […]
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The venture debt facility, backed by InvestEU and signed on 7 April, takes PLD Space’s total 2026 fundraising to €210 million following its €180 million Series C in March. MIURA 5 is on track for its inaugural test flight later this year from the Guiana Space Centre. The European Investment Bank has signed a €30 […]
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The pitch is seductive in its simplicity: AI needs more power than terrestrial grids can supply, so move the data centres into orbit, where the sun never sets and the electricity is free. SpaceX, Blue Origin, and a growing constellation of startups are now racing to make that vision real. The problem, according to the […]
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In 1969, Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong stepped onto the moon’s surface — a momentous engineering and science feat marked by his iconic words: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” Now, NASA is making history again. With the successful launch of NASA’s Artemis II mission yesterday, four astronauts are set to become the first […]
Read MoreSpaceX has confidentially filed paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission to sell shares to the public, according to multiple sources familiar with the registration, setting the stage for what would be the largest initial public offering in history and almost certainly making Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire. The offering, internally code-named Project Apex, […]
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This March on The Curiosity Desk, GBH’s daily science show with host Edgar B. Herwick III, MIT scientists dropped by to address the questions: “How close are we to observing the dark universe?” (Thursday, March 12 episode) and “Is Earth prepared for asteroids?” (Thursday, March 26 episode). Up first, Prof. Nergis Mavalvala, dean of the […]
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For decades, nickel-hydrogen batteries have been the quiet workhorses of space, powering the International Space Station and the Hubble Space Telescope through the extremes of orbit. Now, a California startup wants to put that same chemistry to work on the ground, and it just secured serious money to do it. EnerVenue has raised $300 million […]
Read MoreThe Redmond, Washington startup, which already has an Nvidia H100 GPU operating in orbit and has trained the first AI model in space, is now building a Starship-class spacecraft designed to be the first orbital data centre cost-competitive with terrestrial facilities. Starcloud has raised $170 million in a Series A round led by Benchmark and […]
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The Spanish propulsion startup, based at Castellón Airport, is the first Spanish space company selected for the European Innovation Council Accelerator. Its DARK system became the first hydrogen peroxide propulsion system flown in orbit in Europe, launching on a SpaceX mission in March 2025. Most of the satellites currently operating in orbit are kept in […]
Read MoreThe Swiss startup, spun out of EPFL’s student rocketry programme that built Europe’s first student-made reusable rocket, has raised one of the largest seed rounds ever in European space. Visionaries Club and Creandum led; Lombard Odier, Atlantic Labs, and Sistafund also participated. The satellite lifecycle has a structural inefficiency baked in. Launch vehicles deliver payloads […]
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Mullin is the father of six children, including two twin girls, whom he described as unimaginably “loving” even after they were spanked. “I can spank them and I’m still upset and they’ll come and crawl on my lap two minutes later and just hug on me,” he went on, before diving into a disturbing story […]
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Joseph Paradiso thinks that the most engaging research questions usually span disciplines. Paradiso was trained as a physicist and completed his PhD in experimental high-energy physics at MIT in 1981. His father was a photographer and filmmaker working at MIT, MIT Lincoln Laboratory, and the MITRE Corporation, so he grew up in a house where artists, […]
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When the densest objects in the universe collide and merge, the violence sets off ripples, in the form of gravitational waves, that reverberate across space and time, over hundreds of millions and even billions of years. By the time they pass through Earth, such cosmic ripples are barely discernible. And yet, scientists are able to […]
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Flying on Mars — or any other world — is an extraordinary challenge. An autonomous spacecraft, operating millions of miles from pilots or engineers who could intervene on Earth, must be able to navigate unfamiliar and changing environments, avoid obstacles, land on uncertain terrain, and make decisions entirely on its own. Every maneuver depends on […]
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In its first moments, the infant universe was a trillion-degree-hot soup of quarks and gluons. These elementary particles zinged around at light speed, creating a “quark-gluon plasma” that lasted for only a few millionths of a second. The primordial goo then quickly cooled, and its individual quarks and gluons fused to form the protons, neutrons, […]
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