MIT Haystack Observatory

09/24/2026

Happy birthday to us! A few days late — we were out celebrating 😁💃🎉 Thanks, MIT Lincoln Laboratory friends!

DYK: On 18 September 1961, Lincoln Laboratory completed construction of the Haystack radome in Westford, Massachusetts. The radome, at the time the world’s largest metal space-frame structure, housed a 120-foot diameter fully steerable paraboloidal Cassegrain antenna. The U.S. Air Force funded this facility to support advanced research in radar technology and space communications. Herbert Weiss, associate head of the Radar Division, served as Haystack's chief designer and project leader.

The journey to build the Haystack facility began in March 1958 when Group 45, Airborne Radar Systems, submitted a proposal for a high-performance radar research facility. The initial design did not include a radome, but by late 1958, the team recognized the need to protect the antenna from inclement weather. Thomas King, Group 71, Design Engineering, served as project engineer for the radome. Construction crews began building the radome in June 1961, placing lightweight fiberglass panels coated with chlorinated polyester resin onto a 134-foot-high steel space frame. The panels provided durability, weather resistance, and minimal transmission loss, allowing the radar to operate in all weather conditions. The radome’s design drew inspiration from earlier rigid radome prototypes developed by Lincoln Laboratory, including geodesic domes tested in extreme environments such as near the summit of Mount Washington in New Hampshire.

To learn more about how Lincoln Laboratory designed and built the MIT Haystack Observatory facility, including its radome, watch a 1965 episode of Science Reporter. https://ow.ly/nBEY50ZQxxA

09/08/2026

Please help us congratulate Haystack's Anthea Coster on her extremely prestigious Appleton Prize, awarded in recognition of her career achievements and outstanding contributions to studies in ionospheric physics!

https://news.mit.edu/2026/anthea-coster-awarded-ursi-appleton-prize-0818

MIT Haystack Observatory director Phil Erickson says, "Dr. Coster's award from the International Radio Science Union is most well-deserved, and reflects her substantial international impact on the field of geospace remote sensing."

"Anthea Coster has made seminal contributions to the state of the profession, enabling the international science community to conduct ionospheric research at spatio-temporal scales that were previously unachievable," says Larisa Goncharenko, assistant director and head of the atmospheric and geospace group at Haystack.

CONGRATULATIONS to our friend and colleague on her well-deserved, major award!

08/15/2026

Haystack's own Al Weatherwax, representing the Massachusetts Institute Of Technology (MIT) and the US SCAR delegation at the The Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research SCAR 2026 in Oslo, Norway! Antarctic science: peak international collaboration and vital polar research. 🧊 🇳🇴

06/23/2026

In Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) News: Haystack astronomers map a magnetic “skeleton” funneling gas into a stellar nursery!

Astronomer Thushara Pillai is lead author on a SIMPLIFI project study published in The Astrophysical Journal, https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/ae6a97, in which researchers use SOFIA observations to reveal how magnetic fields guide the assembly of one of our galaxy's most active high-mass star-forming regions.

From the paper: "A new open-access study led by researchers at MIT Haystack Observatory, published in The Astrophysical Journal, has now traced this scaffolding in unprecedented detail in DR21, one of the most active stellar nurseries within 5,000 light-years of the sun. The results show that magnetic fields don't simply exist in DR21 — they actively shape how material flows into the cloud's dense central spine, where new massive stars are being born."

See https://news.mit.edu/2026/mit-haystack-observatory-astronomers-map-magnetic-skeleton-funneling-gas-into-stellar-nursery-0622 for more. 🌟

05/30/2026

MIT Haystack Observatory’s SIMONe meteor radar network caught something at the same time that a loud boom was heard over eastern Massachusetts. Scientists are already analyzing the data!

05/21/2026

Join us in congratulating Heidi Demers and Chester Ruszczyk, both Haystack winners of MIT's Infinite Mile Award in 2026!

05/18/2026

Haystack's John Foster on imaging recent aurora: among the 10% top-viewed authors in Geophysical Research Letters (hello Wiley!) for 2025! Check out the paper, "Imaging the May 2024 Extreme Aurora With Ionospheric Total Electron Content," at:

doi.org/10.1029/2024...

Great job, John!

04/17/2026

A delightful evening at the MIT Museum with our lovely colleagues and a fun audience: Haystack scientist Dhiman Mondal gave a great talk on precise measurement of the Earth's rotation and how we use geodesy to keep more accurate time. This is necessary for GPS to get you where you want to be!

Thanks to the Museum folks for a fantastic After Dark event 🥰

https://mitmuseum.mit.edu/programs/mit-museum-after-dark -- we recommend checking it out!

04/16/2026

COME WORK WITH US: once again, we're hiring! Haystack needs technicians and an HVAC mechanic. Is this you? or someone you know? Please see:

https://www.haystack.mit.edu/about/careers/

for details! You won't find a cooler place to work—thanks to our future HVAC mechanic in particular 🧊—please share with anyone looking for a great career opportunity.