View a television interview with Avi Loeb on the Breakthrough Starshot Initiative, a project to visit the nearest star system, Alpha Centauri, that some of our students and postdocs are involved in.
Dave Charbonneau has been awarded the 2016 Blavatnik National Award for Young Scientists in Physical Sciences & Engineering. The award citation recognizes: "pioneering discoveries in the field of exoplanets and the development of novel observational methods to detect and characterize exoplanets with the ultimate goal of discovering habitable worlds".
Professor Daniel Eisenstein was selected by the Simons Foundation as a 2016 Simons Investigator. "The Simons Investigators program provides a stable base of support for outstanding scientists, enabling them to undertake long-term study of fundamental questions."
Daniel Eisenstein Harvard University
Daniel Eisenstein is a leading figure in modern...
Astronomers announced today that they have found the organic molecule methyl alcohol, or methanol, in the TW Hydrae protoplanetary disk. This is the first such detection of this chemical compound in a young planet-forming disk. Because methanol forms on the icy coatings of small dust grains, this discovery provides a window into the region where comets likely are forming.
"Our Earth consists of silicate rocks and an iron core with a thin veneer of water and life. But the first potentially habitable worlds to form might have been very different. New research suggests that planet formation in the early universe might have created carbon planets consisting of graphite, carbides, and diamond. Astronomers might find these diamond worlds by searching a rare class of stars.
"'This work shows that even stars with a tiny fraction of the carbon in our solar system can host planets,' says lead author and Harvard University graduate student Natalie Mashian....
In the picture: Maria Drout, Jason Dittmann, Ian Czekala, Aaron Bray, Greg Green Elisabeth Newton, Zack Slepian, Vicente Rodriguez-Lopez, Ana-Maria Piso, Lauren Woolsey
