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.
Jun 16, 2017...
Credit: NASA/SwRI /MSSS/Gerald Eichstädt/Seán Doran
More than 400 years after Galileo turned his telescope toward the planet Jupiter, the clouds and mist covering this giant of our Solar System are beginning to disperse. Since 1973, no fewer than six spacecraft have flown by Jupiter. But the Juno probe, launched in 2011 and in orbit around the planet since July 2016, is the first one equipped with systems that are able to reveal the secrets of Jupiter’s inner structure beneath the thick clouds.
Nov 10, 2017...
Frankenstein’s moon, Mark Garlick/Science Photo Library
It came in like a wrecking ball. Neptune has one of the weirdest collections of moons in our solar system, and it’s Triton’s fault. The planet’s largest moon probably smashed into the calm moon system that was there before it arrived, knocking everything out of sync.
Planetary scientists have long suspected that the huge moon Triton is an interloper from outside the Neptune system. Now they have calculated what the other moons may have looked like before the intrusion.
Jun 15, 2015...
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
Many thunderstorms in Saturn’s atmosphere could be driving the gas giant’s vast polar cyclones, according to new simulations inspired by observations from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. What’s more, this research could help astronomers study large-scale atmospheric phenomena on exoplanets light-years away.
For decades, the powerful, swirling hurricane-like features at Saturn’s poles have been a mystery – what drives these storms and why do they persist for so long? Associated with these vortexes are “hot-spots” as observed by Cassini.
Aug 12, 2019... REHOVOT, ISRAEL—August 12, 2019—Weighing in at just about 160 kg (around 353 lbs), a new type of scientific satellite is planned to be built in Israel over the next four years, with a projected launch date of 2023. The satellite, known as ULTRASAT, will carry a telescope designed to observe the universe as it has never been seen before: it will operate in a range of light that is normally invisible to us – ultraviolet, or UV – and have a very large field of view.
Jan 05, 2017... Symphony of Particles: Dr. Shkima Bressler on What Makes Up the Universe
Oct 16, 2017...
This artist’s impression shows two tiny but very dense neutron stars at the point at which they merge and explode as a kilonova. Credit: ESO/L. Calçada/M. Kornmesser
REHOVOT, ISRAEL—October 16, 2017—An international research team, including physicists from the Weizmann Institute of Science, has for the first time succeeded in observing a merger of two colliding neutron stars. The merger was simultaneously picked up by three detectors built for this purpose: the two belonging to the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, or LIGO, in the United States, and the Virgo detector in Italy. The observation may help determine how such heavy elements as uranium, iodine, and gold were formed, as well as enhance our understanding of some of the most violent events in the history of the universe.
Mar 02, 2020...
When a massive star reaches the end of its life, it can explode as a supernova. But there’s a unique type of supernova that’s much brighter that we’re just starting to understand – and which may prove useful in measuring the universe.
Known as superluminous supernovae, these events are typically 10 to 100 times brighter than a regular supernova but much more rare. We’ve spotted about 100 so far, but many aspects of these events remain elusive.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/in-the-news/colder-and-colder/
Dec 17, 2017...
HEALTH & SCIENCE. (photo credit: JPOST STAFF)
When investigating atoms, scientists face a challenge – at room temperature, individual atoms in a gas have kinetic energy and spin about at high velocities. Temperature is, in essence, the measurement of the relative movement between atoms; thus the goal of getting the atoms to have small relative velocities involves freezing them to extremely cold temperatures.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/feature-stories/science-tips-december-2011/
Dec 01, 2011... Less and less of today’s computing is done on desktop computers; cloud computing, in which operations are carried out on a network of shared, remote servers, is expected to rise as the demand for computing power increases. This raises some crucial questions about security: Can we, for instance, perform computations on data stored in “the cloud” without letting anyone else see our information? Research carried out at the Weizmann Institute of Science and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is moving us closer to the ability to work on data while it is still encrypted, giving an encrypted result that can later be securely deciphered.
Jan 07, 2016...
Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
Sometime in the year 2030, if all goes according to plan, some dozen groups around the world will begin receiving unique data streams sent from just above the planet Jupiter. Their instruments, which will include a device designed and constructed in Israel, will arrive there aboard the JUICE (JUpiter ICy satellite Explorer) spacecraft, a mission planned by the European Space Agency (ESA) to investigate the properties of our solar system’s largest planet and several of its moons. Among other things, the research groups participating in JUICE hope to discover whether the conditions for life exist anywhere in the vicinity of the planet, which is a “gas giant” complete with gaseous atmosphere.
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