News | The Division of Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy

12/03/2014

India Becomes TMT Partner

Shayna Chabner McKinney

Leaders of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) project announced on Tuesday that the government of India has signed on as a full partner in the construction of what will be the world's largest ground-based telescope.

11/27/2014

Marvin L. "Murph" Goldberger

Kathy Svitil

Marvin L. "Murph" Goldberger, Caltech president and professor of theoretical physics, emeritus, passed away on November 26, 2014. He was 92.

11/20/2014

New Center Supports Data-Driven Research

Jessica Stoller-Conrad

The new Center for Data-Driven Discovery makes advanced computational tools available to researchers from all six Caltech divisions, plus JPL researchers.

11/17/2014

Watson Lecture: "Photosynthesis: A Planetary Revolution"

Douglas Smith

Two and a half billion years ago, single-celled organisms called cyanobacteria harnessed sunlight to split water molecules, producing energy to power their cells and releasing oxygen into an atmosphere that had previously had none. These early environmental engineers are responsible for the life we see around us today, and much more besides. At 8:00 p.m. on Wednesday, November 19, in Caltech's Beckman Auditorium, Professor of Geobiology Woodward "Woody" Fischer will describe how they transformed the planet. Admission is free.

11/06/2014

Caltech Rocket Experiment Finds Surprising Cosmic Light

Kathy Svitil

Using an experiment carried into space on a NASA suborbital rocket, astronomers at Caltech and their colleagues have detected a diffuse cosmic glow that appears to represent more light than that produced by known galaxies in the universe.

11/03/2014

Using Simulation and Optimization to Cut Wait Times for Voters

Jessica Stoller-Conrad

By developing a tool to help better prepare polling places, Caltech sophomore Sean McKenna is hoping to minimize the amount of time we spend in line at the polls.

10/31/2014

No Galaxy Too Small: An Interview with Evan Kirby

Douglas Smith

"I study the smallest galaxies we know about...These galaxies are interesting because they are part of our cosmic story. The first galaxies to form were small ones, and over time they got smashed together to build up bigger ones."

Evan Kirby, Caltech assistant professor of astronomy

10/16/2014

A Newborn Supernova Every Night

Douglas Smith

A new camera is being built at Caltech's Palomar Observatory that will be able to survey the entire Northern Hemisphere sky in a single night, searching for supernovas, black holes, near-Earth asteroids, and other objects.

10/15/2014

Getting To Know Super-Earths

Kimm Fesenmaier

Results from NASA's Kepler planet-hunting mission have indicated that the most common planets in the galaxy are super-Earths—those that are bigger than Earth but smaller than Neptune. Heather Knutson and her colleagues are using space telescopes to try to find out more about these worlds.

10/14/2014

Remembering Tom Tombrello

Douglas Smith

Thomas Anthony Tombrello, Caltech's Robert H. Goddard Professor of Physics, passed away on September 23, 2014, at age 78. His studies of nuclear reactions in the 1960s helped show how chemical elements are created.

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