Alumni Travelers View Comet of a Lifetime

On a January evening, 31 MIT alumni and guests stood on the steps of their hotel in Calama, Chile, gazing at the pale summer sky. Right on cue, the stunning Comet McNaught (C/2006 P1) swung past the sun; it was the brightest comet visible from Earth in more than 40 years. The group was part of an MIT Alumni Travel Program trip to Chile to visit international astronomical observatories, led by MIT physics professor Edmund Bertschinger. As one alumnus quipped while observing the comet, “Yale can’t match that!”

Learn more about MIT Alumni Travel Program trips: alum.mit.edu/lt/travel/.