News by Topic: Multimessenger Astronomy
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January 20, 2022
RIT scientists confirm a highly eccentric black hole merger for the first time
For the first time, scientists believe they have detected a merger of two black holes with eccentric orbits. According to a paper published in Nature Astronomy by researchers from RIT and the University of Florida, this can help explain how some of the previous black hole mergers are much heavier than previously thought possible.
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December 6, 2021
RIT scientists develop machine learning techniques to shed new light on pulsars
New machine learning techniques developed by scientists at Rochester Institute of Technology are revealing important information about how pulsars—rapidly rotating neutron stars—behave. In a new study published by Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, the researchers outlined their new techniques and how they applied to study Vela, the brightest radio pulsar in the sky.
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November 16, 2021
RIT astrophysics graduate students conduct experiment at White Sands Missile Range
Serena Tramm and Mike Ortiz are pursuing their studies in astrophysics and have been working alongside Michael Zemcov, assistant professor in RIT’s School of Physics and Astronomy. Together, the team conducted an experiment that resulted in traveling to New Mexico’s White Sands Missile Range for the first CIBER-2 launch earlier this year.
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November 8, 2021
LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA Collaboration announces 90 gravitational wave discoveries to date
The LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA Collaboration unveiled several studies that shed important new light on the nature of gravitational waves. They include a “census” of gravitational wave events to date and a new catalog of results from the second half of its third observing run.
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November 1, 2021
A small telescope past Saturn could solve some mysteries of the universe better than giant telescopes near Earth
Essay by Michael Zemcov, assistant professor in the School of Physics and Astronomy and Center for Detectors, published by The Conversation.
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October 4, 2021
Astrophysical sciences and technology Ph.D. student receives DOE award to study dark matter
RIT’s Peter Craig is one of 65 graduate students from 29 states to receive an award from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science Graduate Student Research (SCGSR) program. He will conduct research at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
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July 8, 2021
RIT hosting virtual conference on compact binary mergers for computational astrophysicists
RIT’s Center for Computational Relativity and Gravitation is hosting a virtual conference to discuss the cutting-edge science of binary neutron star and neutron star-black hole mergers.
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July 2, 2021
NSF renews funding for RIT to help detect and characterize low-frequency gravitational waves
The National Science Foundation renewed its support of the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav) with a $17 million grant over five years to operate the NANOGrav Physics Frontiers Center (PFC). RIT will receive $703,000 over the next five years to contribute research to the NANOGrav PFC.
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June 29, 2021
Scientists detect gravitational waves for the first time from black holes swallowing neutron stars
For the first time, scientists detected gravitational waves caused by mergers between black holes and neutron stars. Researchers from RIT’s Center for Computational Relativity and Gravitation (CCRG) helped identify key characteristics about the merger events.
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April 28, 2021
RIT researchers use Frontera supercomputer to study eccentric binary black hole mergers
Researchers from RIT’s Center for Computational Relativity and Gravitation are using the world’s most powerful academic supercomputer to perform simulations that will help scientists study eccentric binary black hole mergers.
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April 21, 2021
Black hole Nobel Prize winner Andrea Ghez is RIT’s 2021 commencement speaker
Andrea Ghez, a 2020 Nobel Prize winner in physics for her research in discovering one of the most exotic phenomena in the universe—the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy—will be a 2021 RIT commencement speaker on May 14 and 15. Ghez joins Eric Avar ’90 (industrial design), Nike’s vice president and creative guide of innovation design who was honored with the College of Art and Design Distinguished Alumni Award in 2016, as the university’s first-ever dual commencement speakers.
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April 9, 2021
RIT postdoctoral researcher Erika Holmbeck named one of NASA’s 2021 Hubble Fellows
Erika Holmbeck, who has been working as a postdoctoral associate with Associate Professor Richard O’Shaughnessy in the Center for Computational Relativity and Gravitation since fall 2020, will begin as a Hubble Fellow in fall 2021.