At Caltech, 2020 was a year like no other, filled with personal and professional challenges as well as fast-breaking and paradigm-shifting events, all of which were framed by (and helped to shape) incredible advances and discoveries in science, engineering, and technology, realized thanks to the ingenuity, insight, and perseverance of Caltech’s community of researchers and scholars, students and s... More »
The latest issue of NASA’s annual Spinoff magazine, which showcases inventions birthed from spaceflight that have potential applications here on Earth, features a series of inventions contributed by the researchers and scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. From camera phones and cellular networks to baby formula and memory foam, the pursuit of space travel has led to countless inventions an... More »
Bill Allen has thrived as the mechanical systems design lead for three Mars rover missions, but he got his start as a teenager sorting letters for the NASA center. Don’t tell Bill Allen he can’t take risks. Allen was just 17 years old when he first set foot on the grounds of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to join the mailroom in the summer of 1981. Voyager had recently encountered Saturn, and th... More »
No matter which candidate you voted for in the recent election, everyone in Pasadena can take pride in Victor Gordo’s installation as our city’s first Latino Mayor. His story is a compelling affirmation of the values of opportunity and inclusion that transcend politics. Victor’s path to the City’s highest office is not only an inspiration for the next generation of youth coming up, it’s an affirma... More »
Packed amid myriad scientific instruments on the Jet Propulsion Laboratory-built Perseverance Mars rover currently en route to Mars, the rover has been “festooned” with five special elements of symbolic value, according to JPL. The rover, which is slated to land on Mars on Feb. 18, includes a plaque recognizing the challenges and losses of the COVID-19 pandemic, another expressing humanities searc... More »
Dec 7. 1941, “a date which will live in infamy,” will be remembered today for more reasons than President Franklin Roosevelt might have imagined when he uttered those words in seeking a declaration of war against Imperial Japan for its surprise attack on the U.S. Naval Fleet and military forces stationed at Pearl Harbor. Indeed, for many, Dec. 7 marks the day before the United States formally ente... More »
Scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and colleagues have concluded that an object detected floating in space not far from Earth three months ago, which was initially believed to be an asteroid, is actually the upper stage of a moon rocket launched in the 1960s, the institution announced Wednesday. Researchers at JPL’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies, or CNEOS, have analyzed data fro... More »
Over the last year, high school students have endured a host of hardships with their schooling, beginning with not being able to attend campus at all for most of the past eight months. Add to that the shift to online extracurricular activities, interacting with friends, and all the activities that make high school memorable. Kennedy Hackett, a 16-year-old junior at John Muir High School Early Coll... More »
When NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory-built Perseverance Mars rover begins its exploration of the Red Planet in less than three months, it will also embark on a groundbreaking experiment that will try to create oxygen from the thin, mostly carbon dioxide atmosphere there, according to JPL. Not only is oxygen vital for human survival, it’s a vital component of rocket fuel. And being able to produce... More »
NASA is reporting that a microphone aboard its Mars 2020 Perseverance rover, built and managed by Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, has recorded the sounds of the spacecraft as it hurtles through interplanetary space. While another microphone aboard the rover is intended specifically to listen for the laser zaps of the SuperCam instrument, this one is devoted to capturing some or all of the e... More »
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