Astronomers from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena are ruling out the possibility that the 2005 YU55 asteroid is likely to fall down on Earth within the next century. But it will get close next week. The rocky object was reported earlier to be com... More »
The path to science glory leads to Pasadena for 15 students contending for the year’s top teen science prize. The first weekend in November, these young innovators will compete for the highest science honor awarded to American high school students when the S... More »
Jacqueline K. Barton, the Arthur and Marian Hanisch Memorial Professor of Chemistry and chair of the Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at Caltech—a leader in studies of the chemistry of DNA—has been named one of seven recipients of the 2011 Na... More »
The panoramic camera and navigation camera of JPL’s Opportunity Mars rover captured an image of a memorial to victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center towers on the 10th anniversary of the tragedy on Mars. The memorial, made from alu... More »
The sky is gray, but you’re not sure if the clouds will clear or rain will pour. Do you grab an umbrella when you go outside? Decisions like this are filled with ambiguity, and we’re faced with them every day, whether picking stocks or choosing the sweetest wa... More »
A team of computer programmers at JPL is giving earthlings the power to journey through the solar system using a new interactive Web-based tool called “Eyes on the Solar System.” The “Eyes on the Solar System” interface combines video game technology and NASA ... More »
A JPL-led research team has confirmed what Walt Disney told us all along: Earth really is a small world, after all. Since Charles Darwin’s time, scientists have speculated that the solid Earth might be expanding or contracting. That was the prevailing belief... More »
Scientists often find strange and unexpected things when they look at materials at the nanoscale—the level of single atoms and molecules. This holds true even for the most common materials, such as water. Case in point: In the last couple of years,... More »
Much like cities organize contingency plans and supplies for emergencies, chronic infectious diseases like HIV form reservoirs that ensure their survival in adverse conditions. But these reservoirs—small populations of viruses or bacteria of a specific type ... More »
Astronomers studying observations taken by NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission have discovered the first known “Trojan” asteroid orbiting the sun along with Earth. Trojans are asteroids that share an orbit with a planet near stable points... More »
While many hotel rooms, recording studios, and even some homes are built with materials to help absorb or reflect sound, mechanisms to truly control the direction of sound waves are still in their infancy. However, researchers at Caltech have now created the f... More »
NASA’s JPL Â and Chevron Corporation in San Ramon, have announced a partnership to develop a range of advanced technologies that can be used in harsh environments, both on Earth and in space. “We are proud that the same pool of talent that sends rovers to Mars... More »
