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TMT Construction Gets Green Light
07/28/2014

TMT Construction Gets Green Light

Kathy Svitil
The Hawaii Board of Land and Natural Resources has given the official green light for construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) on the summit of Mauna Kea, home to many of the world's premier astronomical observatories.
50 Years of Quarks
07/22/2014

50 Years of Quarks

Douglas Smith
Caltech's Murray Gell-Mann simplified the world of particle physics in 1964 by standing it on its head. He theorized that protons—subatomic particles as solid as billiard balls and as stable as the universe—were actually cobbled together from bizarre entities, dubbed "quarks," whose properties are unlike anything seen in our world. Unlike protons, quarks cannot be separated from their fellows and studied in isolation; despite this, our understanding of the universe is built on their amply documented existence.
Yuval Ne'eman and Murray Gell-Mann in 1964.
Ed Stone Honored
07/22/2014

Ed Stone Honored

Douglas Smith
Ed Stone, Caltech's David Morrisroe Professor of Physics, has won the aerospace equivalent of an Oscar. On Wednesday, July 16, the American Astronautical Society (AAS) presented him its sixth Lifetime Achievement Award for his "sustained and extraordinary contributions to America's space programs, including innovative planetary missions."
Edward C. Stone
Future Electronics May Depend on Lasers
07/17/2014

Future Electronics May Depend on Lasers

Jessica Stoller-Conrad
Caltech researchers stabilize microwave oscillators with optical frequencies from a silicon chip. The approach could ultimately replace more conventional methods that rely on crystal references.
Kip Thorne Discusses First Discovery of Thorne-Żytkow Object
06/27/2014

Kip Thorne Discusses First Discovery of Thorne-Żytkow Object

Cynthia Eller
We recently sat down with Kip Thorne to ask how it feels to have astronomers discover something whose existence he postulated decades before.
Supernova Caught in the Act by Palomar Transient Factory
05/21/2014

Supernova Caught in the Act by Palomar Transient Factory

Cynthia Eller
The problem with observing supernovae is knowing just when and where one is occurring and being able to point a world-class telescope at it in the hours immediately afterward.
Tricking the Uncertainty Principle
05/15/2014

Tricking the Uncertainty Principle

Jessica Stoller-Conrad
Researchers at Caltech find a way to sidestep the quantum "noise" that limits the precision of ultrasensitive position measurements.
Walter Burke Institute for Theoretical Physics Established
05/14/2014

Walter Burke Institute for Theoretical Physics Established

Building on Caltech's leading position in fields such as general relativity, astrophysics, quantum computation, superstring theory, elementary particle theory, and condensed matter theory, the new institute will train generations of theoretical physicists.
Walter Burke
50 Years Ago: The First Look at a Dry Mars
05/07/2014

50 Years Ago: The First Look at a Dry Mars

Douglas Smith
In 1964, Caltech astronomy professor Guido Münch and Jet Propulsion Laboratory space scientists Lewis Kaplan and Hyron Spinrad pushed the world's second-largest telescope to its limits and dashed—at least for the next few decades—any hopes of finding liquid water on Mars.
Guido Münch
To Supernova or Not to Supernova
05/01/2014

To Supernova or Not to Supernova

Cynthia Eller
Caltech researchers present a three-dimensional model of a rapidly rotating star with a strong magnetic field undergoing the process of collapse and explosion . . . or at least trying to.