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 benefit of humanity.
Feb 11, 2019...
Prof. Oded Aharonson and the Beresheet lunar craft
REHOVOT, ISRAEL—February 11, 2019—After an enterprise lasting nearly a decade, the Israeli unmanned Moon mission “Beresheet” (“Genesis” in Hebrew) will soon take off from Earth, bound for the Moon’s rocky surface. Prof. Oded Aharonson of the Weizmann Institute of Science’s Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences is head of the international science team, and will be watching closely as the craft approaches the Moon and initiates the scientific part of the mission, which will start well before touchdown.
Dec 13, 2011... REHOVOT, ISRAEL—December 13, 2011— Today’s announcement from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in Geneva points to promising signs for the existence of the Higgs boson. The LHC is the world’s largest particle accelerator. Researchers from the Weizmann Institute of Science have been prominent participants in ATLAS, one of the two LHC experiments (the other is the CMS, or Compact Muon Solenoid) to produce results in the search for this elementary particle. Prof. Giora Mikenberg was the ATLAS Muon Project Leader for many years and now heads the Israeli LHC team. Prof. Ehud Duchovni heads Weizmann’s ATLAS group, as well as a small group looking for signals that relate to supersymmetry (SUSY, which deals with possible solutions to theoretical problems). Prof. Eilam Gross is currently the ATLAS Higgs physics group convener. Each of these scientists, members of the Weizmann Institute’s Department of Particle Physics and Astrophysics, have been part of the effort to find the Higgs since 1987.
Jan 21, 2019...
Under general relativity, a black hole is inescapable. Once something travels beyond the event horizon into the heart of the black hole, there’s no return. So intense is the gravitational force of a black hole that not even light - the fastest thing in the Universe - can achieve escape velocity.
Under general relativity, therefore, a black hole emits no electromagnetic radiation. But, as a young Stephen Hawking theorised in 1974, it does emit something when you add quantum mechanics to the mix.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/news-releases/xenon1t-dark-matter-experiment-launched/
Nov 12, 2015...
The Gran Sasso Underground Laboratory’s Hall B, with illuminated building and water tank in the back
REHOVOT, ISRAEL—November 12, 2015—There is five times more dark matter in the universe than so-called normal matter – the atoms and molecules that we know. Yet we still don’t know what makes up this dark component. On November 11, 2015, an international team of scientists inaugurated the new XENON1T experiment, which has been designed to search for dark matter with unprecedented sensitivity, in the Gran Sasso Underground Laboratory in Italy.
Mar 28, 2018...
Prof. Avishay Gal-Yam
Many stars die with a whimper, subsiding into cool, small stars, but the most massive go out with a bang. These giants produce elements in their cores, and when the stars explode into the spectacular phenomena known as supernovae, the power of the event scatters the elements far into space. You could even say that supernovae are responsible for life on Earth, since the explosions are the source of most of the elements found on our planet and in our bodies.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/in-the-news/the-physicist-who-denies-dark-matter/
May 18, 2017...
Mordehai Milgrom Credit: Weizmann Institute of Science
“He is one of those dark matter people,” Mordehai Milgrom said about a colleague stopping by his office at the Weizmann Institute of Science. Milgrom introduced us, telling me that his friend is searching for evidence of dark matter in a project taking place just down the hall.
“There are no ‘dark matter people’ and ‘MOND people,’ ” his colleague retorted.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/feature-stories/fire-and-ice-on-mars/
Dec 09, 2014... About 4.5 billion of years ago, in a small solar system with a rather weak sun, were two “Goldilocks” planets. That’s what scientists call planets that could harbor life: not so hot as to burn it up, not so cold as to be prohibitive, but temperate: just right. The two planets had similar conditions – comparable basic elements, age, geography – and yet life formed on one and not the other. One became oxygenated, and became our Earth; the other became desiccated, and we call it Mars.
Jul 05, 2017... The remnants of supernova 1987A show newly formed dust in the center (red) surrounded by the supernova’s shock wave as it collides with gas around the supernova (blue and green). The image here is a composite of images from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array telescope in Chile (red), the Hubble Space Telescope (green) and Chandra X-ray Observatory (blue). NASA, ESA, and A. Angelich (NRAO)
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/in-the-news/how-the-mighty-winds-of-uranus-and-neptune-blow/
May 15, 2013...
This image of Uranus was obtained in 2005 by the Hubble Space Telescope. Rings, southern collar and a bright cloud in the northern hemisphere are visible. CREDIT: NASA, ESA, and M. Showalt
These findings could shed light on how those immensely strong winds are born, and how giant planets form and evolve over time, scientists added.
Giant planets in the outer solar system, like Uranus and Neptune, are dominated by winds that can reach supersonic speeds and jet streams 10 to 15 times stronger than those found on Earth, judging by images of how clouds race by on those worlds. However, just how deep those winds reached was unknown until now, hidden as those lower depths are beneath those dense layers of clouds. [Photos of Uranus from near and far]
Jul 25, 2012... The research of the Weizmann Institute's Prof. Oded Aharonson focuses on planetary geology, geophysics, and dynamics; here, he shares his discoveries from Titan, an icy moon of Saturn.
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