About Us
Founded in 1944, the American Committee for the Weizmann Institute of Science develops philanthropic support for the Weizmann Institute in Israel, and advances its mission of science for the future of humanity.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/news-releases/why-do-we-see-the-man-in-the-moon/
Mar 12, 2012... REHOVOT, ISRAEL—March 12, 2012—There’s something poetic about gazing up at the night sky, seeing the familiar face of the Man in the Moon” who faithfully accompanies us through life. The synchronous rotation of the Moon taking the same amount of time to spin around its own axis as it does to revolve around Earth is what causes the Moon to “lock eyes” with Earth, resulting in one of its hemispheres constantly facing us. But is there a reason why this particular half of the Moon locked with Earth, or was it pure coincidence that it didn't “turn its back” on us?
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/news-releases/astronomers-observe-biggest-star-explosion/
Dec 03, 2009... REHOVOT, ISRAEL—December 3, 2009—What happens when a really gargantuan star—one hundreds of times bigger than our sun—blows up? Although a theory developed years ago describes what the explosion of such an enormous star should look like, no one had actually observed one—until now. An international team, led by scientists in Israel and including researchers from Germany, the US, the UK, and China, tracked a supernova—an exploding star—for over a year and a half, and found that it neatly fits the predictions for the explosion of a star greater than 150 times the sun's mass. Their findings, which could influence our understanding of everything from natural limits on star size to the evolution of the universe, appeared recently in Nature.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/in-the-news/the-israelis-who-went-to-jupiter/
Jul 07, 2016...
Dr. Yohai Kaspi, 42, a planetary researcher at the Weizmann Institute, watched on Tuesday live the Juno spacecraft in space and was reminded of one of his happiest childhood moments in Nahariyah. “When I was 7 years old the Voyager spacecraft passed close to Jupiter and Saturn for the first time,” he explained in excitement.
"There wasn't any internet at that time, and there wasn't any way to actually see it happening. So my father bought me a NASA poster of Jupiter which I posted above my bed."
Dec 14, 2015...
Prof. Oded Aharonson in the observatory at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Nov. 26, 2015. Credit: Eyal Toueg
Prof. Oded Aharonson had a comfortable life in the United States, to which he had moved from Israel when he was 13. At 21, with a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in physics from Cornell University, he returned to Israel for two years to serve in the Israel Defense Forces. At 23, he began his Ph.D. in physics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. As soon as he completed his doctorate he started working at California Institute of Technology in planetary science, his area of specialization.
Aug 23, 2012... Gamma rays detected by NASA's Fermi space telescope show that the remnant of Tycho's supernova shines in the highest-energy form of light. This portrait of the shattered star includes gamma rays (magenta), X-rays (yellow, green, and blue), infrared (red) and optical data. CREDIT: Gamma ray, NASA/DOE/Fermi LAT Collaboration; X-ray, NASA/CXC/SAO; Infrared, NASA/JPL-Caltech; Optical, MPIA, Calar Alto, O. Krause et al. and DSS
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/news-releases/explosive-material-the-making-of-a-supernova/
Mar 15, 2017... In the most common type of supernova, the iron core of a massive star suddenly collapses in on itself and the outer layers are thrown out into space in a spectacular explosion. New research led by Weizmann Institute of Science researchers shows that the stars that become these “core-collapse supernovae” might exhibit instability for several months before the big event, spewing material into space and creating a dense gas shell around themselves. The scientists think that many massive stars, including the red super-giants that are the most common progenitors of the core-collapse supernovae, may begin the process this way.
Aug 12, 2019...
The Weizmann Institute of Science and the Israel Space Agency will work together to create a new "micro-satellite," the ULTRASAT, projected to launch in 2023 (Weizmann Institute of Science)
The satellite, known as ULTRASAT and weighing just 160 kilograms (353 pounds), will carry a telescope “designed to observe the Universe as it has not been seen it before,” the institute said in a statement.
Aug 01, 2016...
Headed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Juno’s mission is to “improve our understanding of the solar system’s beginnings by revealing the origin and evolution of Jupiter.” (Learn more at NASA’s Juno website.)
By learning about the mysterious weather on the giant planet – including the massive, ancient storm known as the Great Red Spot – and revealing Jupiter’s structure via magnetic and gravitational measurements, the international consortium of scientists hopes to understand how our corner of the universe was formed.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/news-releases/a-multiple-impact-origin-for-the-moon/
Jan 09, 2017... The formation of the Moon has remained something of a puzzle. A leading theory proposes a cataclysmic impact involving a Mars-sized object and a young Earth. But there are some inconsistencies with this scenario. A new study at the Weizmann Institute of Science, based on hundreds of simulations run on a computer cluster, suggests that a more plausible chain of events might involve a number of run-ins with smaller objects. This would have produced smaller moonlets that would have eventually coalesced into the single Moon we have today. The research appeared in Nature Geoscience.
May 28, 2017...
This artist’s concept shows the pole-to-pole orbits of NASA’s Juno spacecraft at Jupiter. Image courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI
Less than a year into its planned three-year study of the planet Jupiter, NASA’s Juno research spacecraft already has revealed or confirmed facts that the Juno Science Team – including Yohai Kaspi of Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science – could only guess at previously.
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