Skip to Content
MIT News magazine

Planets' Baby Pictures

MIT research published in Nature in April offers the first direct evidence that when a massive star explodes, some of its debris falls back toward its dense remaining core, called a neutron star. The resulting volatile disk of debris swirls around the neutron star like a 45 record with a marble at its center. (The colorized image to the left shows such a disk surrounding the neutron star Cassiopeia A, which is about 10,000 light-years away.)

A volatile disk of debris surronding the neutron star Cassiopeia A. (Credit: X-Ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: NASA/STSCI; Infrared: NASA/JPL-Caltech.)

Solar systems like our own usually coalesce from a cloud of gas, dust, and ice left over when a new star forms. From images taken by the NASA Infrared Spitzer Telescope, associate professor of physics Deepto Chakrabarty and his team deduced that the spinning cloud created when a massive star dies in a supernova explosion could also give rise to planets. Bathed in x-rays, any such planets would be virtually uninhabitable.

Keep Reading

Most Popular

Geoffrey Hinton tells us why he’s now scared of the tech he helped build

“I have suddenly switched my views on whether these things are going to be more intelligent than us.”

ChatGPT is going to change education, not destroy it

The narrative around cheating students doesn’t tell the whole story. Meet the teachers who think generative AI could actually make learning better.

Meet the people who use Notion to plan their whole lives

The workplace tool’s appeal extends far beyond organizing work projects. Many users find it’s just as useful for managing their free time.

Learning to code isn’t enough

Historically, learn-to-code efforts have provided opportunities for the few, but new efforts are aiming to be inclusive.

Stay connected

Illustration by Rose Wong

Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review

Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.

Thank you for submitting your email!

Explore more newsletters

It looks like something went wrong.

We’re having trouble saving your preferences. Try refreshing this page and updating them one more time. If you continue to get this message, reach out to us at customer-service@technologyreview.com with a list of newsletters you’d like to receive.