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03/14/2007

Kuiper-belt Object Was Broken up by Massive Impact 4.5 Billion Years Ago, Study Shows

Robert Tindol

In the outer reaches of the solar system, there is an object known as 2003 EL61 that looks like and spins like a football being drop-kicked over the proverbial goalpost of life.

02/21/2007

Astronomers Puzzled by Spectra of Transiting Planet Orbiting Nearby Star

Robert Tindol

A team of astronomers led by Carl Grillmair of the California Institute of Technology has discovered some puzzling things about a Jupiter-sized planet that passes in front of a nearby star in the constellation Vulpecula.

02/13/2007

LIGO and Virgo Join Forces In Search for Gravitational Waves

Robert Tindol

The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and the Virgo interferometric gravitational-wave detector of the European Gravitational Observatory (EGO) near Pisa, Italy, have agreed to join in a collaborative search for gravitational waves from sources in and far beyond our galaxy. The collaboration will link the three LIGO detectors, which are in the United States, and LIGO's partner, GEO600 in Germany, with the Virgo detector to increase the likelihood of detecting the elusive phenomenon first predicted over 90 years ago by Albert Einstein in his general theory of relativity, and pinpointing the source of the signals.

02/07/2007

Caltech Physicist Marc Kamionkowski Named Winner of Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award

Robert Tindol

Marc Kamionkowski, the Robinson Professor of Theoretical Physics and Astrophysics at Caltech, has been named one of eight winners of the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award. The announcement was made today by U.S. Secretary of Energy Samuel W. Bodman in Washington, D.C.

02/02/2007

New Astrophysics Building Under Way

Jill Perry

In December 2008 astronomers and astrophysicists at the California Institute of Technology will have a new home for their offices, classes, and meetings. Construction on the Cahill Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics began Jan. 31 with a groundbreaking ceremony.

01/24/2007

Caltech and UCLA Researchers Create Memory Circuit the Size of a Human White Blood Cell

Robert Tindol

Don't throw away your laptop yet, but there's a promising new high-tech invention being announced this week. Researchers have created a memory circuit the size of a white blood cell that has enough capacity to store the Declaration of Independence and have space left over. With 160 kilobits of capacity, it's the densest memory circuit ever fabricated.

01/09/2007

Protoplanetary Disk Found Encircling Mira B

Robert Tindol

A team of astronomers is reporting today at the winter meeting of the American Astronomical Society that material from the dying star Mira A is being captured into a disk around Mira B, its companion.

01/08/2007

Astronomers Discover a Quasar Trio

Robert Tindol

Astronomers at the California Institute of Technology and Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland are announcing today the discovery of the first known triplet of quasars. The discovery of the trio, about 10.5 billion light-years from Earth, is based in part on observations at the W.M. Keck Observatory on Mauna Kea, Hawaii.

01/07/2007

New 3-D Map of Dark Matter Reveals Cosmic Scaffolding

Robert Tindol

An international team of astronomers has created a comprehensive three-dimensional map that offers a first look at the weblike large-scale distribution of dark matter in the universe. Dark matter is an invisible form of matter that accounts for most of the universe's mass, but that so far has eluded direct detection, or even a definitive explanation for its makeup.

12/20/2006

New Type of Black-Hole Explosion Has Astrophysicists Wondering About Its Origin

Robert Tindol

Scientists are announcing this week their detection of a June 14 gamma-ray burst that probably signals a hitherto undetected type of cosmic explosion. The hybrid gamma-ray burst probably created a new black hole, but the details of how the explosion occurred are unclear.

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