This artist concept features NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover, a mobile robot for investigating Mars’ past or present ability to sustain microbial life. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech NASA will host a media teleconference at 11 a.m. PDT (2 p.m. E... More »
Researchers are brewing up icy, organic concoctions in the lab to mimic materials at the edge of our solar system and beyond. The laboratory equipment at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., is seen at right, and a very young solar system, wit... More »
Guruswami Ravichandran (right) presents the Wings Award to Sir Martin Sweeting at a gala banquet and awards ceremony at the Caltech Athenaeum. Sir Martin Sweeting, founder and executive chairman of Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL) and director of t... More »
A computer-generated image depicts NASA’s Juno spacecraft firing its main engine. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech NASA’s Juno spacecraft successfully executed a second Deep Space Maneuver, called DSM-2 last Friday, Sept. 14. The 30 minute firing of its main eng... More »
Dianne Newman (left), and Doris Tsao. Two members of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) faculty have been given National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director’s Awards. The awards are administered through the NIH’s Common Fund, which provides sup... More »
Small spherical objects fill the field in this mosaic combining four images from the Microscopic Imager on NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell Univ./ USGS/Modesto Junior College NASA’s long-lived rover Opportunity ... More »
Astronomers have discovered two gas giant planets orbiting stars in the Beehive cluster, a collection of about 1,000 tightly packed stars. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech NASA-funded astronomers have, for the first time, spotted planets orbiting sun-like stars ... More »
David Hsieh, an assistant professor of physics, is one of Caltech’s newest faculty members. Hsieh grew up in Hong Kong before hopping the Pacific to earn his BS in physics and mathematics in 2003 from Stanford. Hsieh then received his PhD from Princeton in... More »
Curiosity, the Mars Science Laboratory rover, was prepped for pre-launch survival testing under Martian conditions in JPL’s space simulator on March 8, 2011. The sealed chamber was pumped down to the near-vacuum of Mar’s atmosphere, and chilled to –130°C by... More »
On September 11, 1997, the Mars Global Surveyor slipped into orbit around the Red Planet. Like JPL’s Mariner and Viking missions before it, MGS (as it was affectionately known) fundamentally changed our view of Mars. First came the flybys, each of which return... More »
Say ‘Ahh’ on Mars This set of images from NASA’s Curiosity rover shows the inlet covers for the Sample Analysis at Mars instrument opening and closing, as the rover continues to check out its instruments in the first phase after landing. Image credit: NASA/JPL... More »
Ancient Mars, like Earth today, was a diverse planet shaped by many different geologic processes. So when scientists, using rovers or orbiting spacecraft, detect a particular mineral there, they must often consider several possible ways it could have been ma... More »
