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.
https://weizmann-usa.org/news-media/news-releases/weizmann-institute-instrument-bound-for-jupiter/
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.
https://weizmann-usa.org/news-media/in-the-news/rare-star-to-supernova-link-established/
Mar 22, 2009...
A supernova, or stellar explosion, some 200 million light-years away has been traced to its progenitor star, one of only a few times the source of a supernova has been identified based on pre- and post-supernova images.
Astrophysicist Avishay Gal-Yam of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, and astronomer Douglas Leonard of San Diego State University used images from the Hubble Space Telescope to single out the star. In 1997 images, there was a bright light source near where the explosion, dubbed SN 2005gl, was detected in 2005.
https://weizmann-usa.org/news-media/in-the-news/super-supernovae/
May 22, 2013...
HIGHEST-ENERGY SUPERNOVAE might look quite spectacular from a planet orbiting the exploding star, but any civilization would most likely be obliterated. Illustration by Ron Miller.
In the middle of 2005 the W. M. Keck observatory on Mauna Kea in Hawaii completed an upgrade of one of its giant twin telescopes. By automatically correcting for atmospheric turbulence, the instrument could now produce images as sharp as those from the Hubble Space Telescope. Shrinivas Kulkarni of the California Institute of Technology urged young Caltech researchers—myself among them—to apply for observing time. Once the rest of the astronomy community realized how terrific the telescopes were, he warned us, securing a slot would become very competitive.
May 24, 2010...
Not all explosions are created equal: It’s as true for film effects as it is for the stars. Yet, until now, scientists had only observed two basic kinds of exploding stars, known as supernovae. Now, scientists at the Weizmann Institute of Science, in collaboration with others around the world, have identified a third type of supernova. Their findings appeared this week in Nature.
The first two types of supernova are either hot, young giants that go out in a violent display as they collapse under their own weight, or old, dense, white dwarves that blow up in a thermonuclear explosion. The new supernova appeared in telescope images in early January 2005, and scientists, seeing that it had recently begun the process of exploding, started collecting and combining data from different telescope sites around the world, measuring both the amount of material thrown off in the explosion and its chemical makeup. But Dr. Avishay Gal-Yam, Hagai Perets (now at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics), Iair Arcavi, and Michael Kiewe of the Weizmann Institute’s Faculty of Physics, together with Paolo Mazzali of the Max-Planck Institute for Astrophysics, Germany, the Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, and INAF/Padova Observatory in Italy, Prof. David Arnett from the University of Arizona, and researchers from across the US, Canada, Chile, and the UK, soon found that the new supernova did not fit either of the known patterns.
https://weizmann-usa.org/news-media/in-the-news/jupiter-s-stormy-winds-churn-deep-into-the-planet/
Oct 19, 2017...
A ring of cyclones swirls around Jupiter's south pole.
NASA’s Juno spacecraft has plumbed the depths of Jupiter, revealing that the planet’s famous bands of swirling winds extend thousands of kilometres down. The work is the sharpest glimpse yet into Jupiter’s interior.
Jupiter’s colourful stripes are atmospheric patterns composed of winds that flow alternately east and west. Until now, researchers haven’t been able to say whether those bands are confined to a shallow layer or reach deeper into the planet. “Determining this is one of the main goals of the Juno mission,” said team member Yohai Kaspi, a geophysicist at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, on 18 October at the American Astronomical Society’s Division for Planetary Sciences meeting in Provo, Utah.
https://weizmann-usa.org/news-media/news-releases/unveiling-the-depths-of-jupiter-s-winds/
Mar 07, 2018...
Jupiter’s south pole, taken during a Juno flyby, Dec 16, 2017. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Kevin M. Gill
REHOVOT, ISRAEL—March 7, 2018—Three papers appearing in Nature on March 8 answer a question that scientists have been asking ever since Galileo first observed the famous stripes of Jupiter: Are the colorful bands just a pretty surface phenomenon, or are they a significant stratum of the planet? The Weizmann Institute of Science’s Prof. Yohai Kaspi led this research, in which measurements from NASA’s Juno spacecraft were analyzed to reveal that the stripes – belts of strong winds circling the planet – extend to a depth of about 3,000 km (about 1,900 miles). That is quite a bit deeper than previous estimates, and is revising scientists’ picture of Jupiter’s atmosphere as well as its inner layers.
https://weizmann-usa.org/news-media/in-the-news/meet-israel-s-big-noise-in-the-big-bang-experiment/
Apr 04, 2012...
Zaijfman, President of the Weizmann Institute
If you have any interest at all in science, a chat with Daniel Zajfman can be pretty instructive. As head of the world-renowned Weizmann Institute in Israel, he is at the forefront of scientific research in his country. During an hour's conversation at his London hotel, topics veer from the origin of the universe to how to make a radio from rotten potatoes.
https://weizmann-usa.org/news-media/news-releases/beresheet-lunar-landing-site-revealed/
Mar 17, 2019...
The Beresheet landing site
REHOVOT, ISRAEL—March 17, 2019—The main scientific instrument on board the Israeli Beresheet spacecraft, the SpaceIL Magnetometer (SILMAG), has now been successfully turned on in space and data returned to Earth. After its successful launch, Beresheet is circling Earth on its journey to the Moon. Prof. Oded Aharonson of the Weizmann Institute of Science is heading the team that is currently analyzing the SILMAG information to evaluate the health and accuracy of the instrument in space, as well as recording the magnetic signature of the spacecraft itself, which will then be subtracted from the measurements made on the Moon.
https://weizmann-usa.org/news-media/news-releases/israeli-eyes-on-jupiter-orbiter/
Jun 30, 2016...
Image: NASA
On July 4, NASA’s Juno spacecraft will be entering orbit around Jupiter, the largest planet in the Solar System. Its extended trip – more than 2 billion kilometers over nearly five years – will be over, but its work will just be beginning. Following some intricate maneuvers, the spacecraft will go into a unique 14-day orbit that will allow it to get as close as 4000 km above the cloud tops of the planet – much closer than any mission ever before flown.
https://weizmann-usa.org/news-media/in-the-news/chasing-the-higgs-boson/
Mar 05, 2013...
Peter Higgs, center, of the University of Edinburgh, was one of the first to propose the particle’s existence. From left, physicists at CERN who helped lead the hunt for it: Sau Lan Wu, Joe Incandela, Guido Tonelli and Fabiola Gianotti. Illustration by Sean McCabe/Photographs by Daniel Auf der Mauer, Toni Albir, Fabrice Coffrini, Fred Merz
MEYRIN, Switzerland — Vivek Sharma missed his daughter.
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