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08/20/2007

Thirty-Meter Telescope Project Receives $15 Million from Moore Foundation

Robert Tindol

The California Institute of Technology and the Regents of the University of California have each received $7.5 million in additional funding from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation for the development of the Thirty-Meter Telescope. The TMT is being developed by a U.S.-Canadian team with construction anticipated to begin in April 2009. The new grants augment the $64 million already planned for the design development phase of the TMT project, which included $35 million previously awarded to Caltech and UC by the Moore Foundation.

08/06/2007

Astronomers Find Largest Exoplanet to Date

Robert Tindol

An international team of astronomers has discovered the largest-radius and lowest-density exoplanet of all those whose mass and radius are known. It is a gas-giant planet about twice the size of Jupiter, and is likely to have a curved cometlike tail. It has been named TrES-4, to indicate that it is the fourth planet detected by the Trans-atlantic Exoplanet Survey (TrES) network of telescopes.

07/25/2007

International Consortium Is Created to Build World's Largest Submillimeter Telescope

Robert Tindol

Five institutions from North America and Europe have created a consortium to oversee the building of a 25-meter submillimeter telescope on a high elevation in Chile. When completed in 2013, the $100 million instrument will be the premier telescope of its kind in the world.

07/13/2007

Caltech, JPL, Northrop Grumman to Celebrate 50 Years of Space Exploration

Jill Perry

Before October 1957, space flight was a thing of fantasy. Today we are experienced space explorers with unlimited voyages to undertake. Where is space flight's next horizon? What constitutes sensible space investment? How did the space pioneers accomplish their goals? These topics will be addressed at "50 Years in Space: An International Aerospace Conference Celebrating 50 Years of Space Technology," which will take place from September 19 to 21 at the California Institute of Technology.

07/13/2007

Dwarf Star Gulps Giant to Form Supernova

Robert Tindol

A team of European and American astronomers has announced the discovery of the best evidence yet for the nature of the star systems that explode as type Ia supernovae. The team obtained a unique set of observations with the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope and the Keck I 10-meter telescope in Hawaii.

07/11/2007

NASA'S Spitzer Finds Water Vapor on Hot, Alien Planet

Robert Tindol

The exoplanet HD 189733b has just been found to have water vapor in its atmosphere. The observation provides the best evidence to date that water exists on worlds outside our own solar system.

07/10/2007

Astronomers Claim to Find the Most Distant Known Galaxies

Jill Perry

Using natural "gravitational lenses," an international team of astronomers claim to have found the first traces of a population of the most distant galaxies yet seen-the light we see from them today left more than 13 billion years ago, when the universe was just 500 million years old.

07/05/2007

Caltech Scientists Create Breakthrough Sensor Capable of Detecting Individual Molecules

Robert Tindol

Applied physicists at the California Institute of Technology have figured out a way to detect single biological molecules with a microscopic optical device. The method has already proven effective for detecting the signaling proteins called cytokines that indicate the function of the immune system, and it could be used in numerous medical applications, such as the extremely early detection of cancer and other diseases, as well as in basic biological research.

06/14/2007

The Dwarf Planet Known as Eris is More Massive than Pluto, New Data Shows

Robert Tindol

Die-hard Pluto fans still seeking redemption for their demoted planet have cause for despair this week. New data shows that the dwarf planet Eris is 27 percent more massive than Pluto, thereby strengthening the decree last year that there are eight planets in the solar system and a growing list of dwarf planets.

06/05/2007

On-Chip Optics Makes Continuous Visible Light from Low-Power Infrared

John Avery

If you shine a red laser pointer through a glass window you wouldn't expect it to come out blue on the other side, but with a much brighter beam it just might. At high intensities light energy tends to combine and redistribute, so that red light really can produce blue.

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