To compete in a race against the clock and each other, 18 student teams built complicated contraptions for the annual Invention Challenge at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Some 250 students hauled homemade machines they’d spent weeks honing to NASA’s Jet Pr... More »
Each year the L’Oréal USA For Women in Science fellowship program grants five $60,000 awards “to cultivate a postdoctoral community of women, empowering them to persist in their research, attain leadership roles, and become inspirational mentors for the genera... More »
The satellites are part of the agency’s SunRISE mission, which will study the physics behind explosions that the Sun generates. Most NASA missions feature one spacecraft or, occasionally, a few. The agency’s Sun Radio Interferometer Space Experiment (SunRISE) ... More »
There are times when scientific progress comes in the form of discovering something completely new. Other times, progress boils down to doing something better, faster, or more easily. New research from the lab of Caltech’s Lihong Wang, the Bren Professor of Me... More »
Brain–machine interfaces (BMIs) are devices that can read brain activity and translate that activity to control an electronic device like a prosthetic arm or computer cursor. They promise to enable people with paralysis to move prosthetic devices with their th... More »
In the search for new particles and forces in nature, physicists are on the hunt for behaviors within atoms and molecules that are forbidden by the tried-and-true Standard Model of particle physics. Any deviations from this model could indicate what physicists... More »
On the fifth anniversary of the InSight lander’s Nov. 26 touchdown on Mars, Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena celebrated the spacecraft’s numerous accomplishments, including the detection of the first-ever “Marsquakes,” comprehensive weather data collectio... More »
This video combines two perspectives of the 59th flight of NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter. Video on the left was captured by the Mastcam-Z on NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover; the black-and-white video on the right was taken by Ingenuity’s downward-pointing Na... More »
Since launching 16 months ago, the EMIT imaging spectrometer aboard the International Space Station has shown an ability to detect more than just surface minerals. More than a year after first detecting methane plumes from its perch aboard the International Sp... More »
Sodium in the form of table salt helps make French fries a tasty snack and bacon a delicious indulgence, but it is also a vital nutrient for the proper functioning of our bodies, playing a role in the movement of your muscles, the signaling of your neurons, an... More »
NISAR, the trailblazing Earth-observing radar satellite being developed by the United States and Indian space agencies, passed a major milestone on Nov. 13, emerging from a 21-day test aimed at evaluating its ability to function in the extreme temperatures and... More »
Six weeks remain for you to add your name to a microchip that will ride aboard the spacecraft as it explores Jupiter’s moon Europa. It’s not every day that members of the public have the chance to send their names into deep space beyond Mars, all the way to Ju... More »
