Alfredo Camacho and his three daughters started a new routine last week: Every evening they go to the parking lot outside a nearby library to get Wi-Fi access. The kids do homework and download YouTube videos, while Alfredo checks his email and searches job listings. Camacho and his daughters ages 9, 12, and 15 live in Guadalupe, a town of roughly 9,000 on the Central Coast of California. They use... More »
Shortly after NASA’s Kepler mission began operations back in 2009, it identified what was thought to be a planet about the size of Neptune. Called KOI-5Ab, the planet, which was the second new planet candidate to be found by the mission, was ultimately forgotten as Kepler racked up more and more planet discoveries. By the end of its mission in 2018, Kepler had discovered a whopping 2,394 exoplanet... More »
As a company committed to eliminating judgement and intimidation while promoting kindness and acceptance, Planet Fitness is launching a special promotion to continue its fight against bullying – the #1 concern for parents today*. From November 9 through November 16, Planet Fitness is inviting everyone to join for only a $10 enrollment fee for both the $10 and $19.99 monthly memberships, and the co... More »
About the size of a briefcase, the CubeSat was built to test new technologies but exceeded expectations by spotting a planet outside our solar system. Long before it was deployed into low-Earth orbit from the International Space Station in Nov. 2017, the tiny ASTERIA spacecraft had a big goal: to prove that a satellite roughly the size of a briefcase could perform some of the complex tasks much la... More »
Beam Wave Guide antennas at Goldstone, known as the “Beam Waveguide Cluster.” Each antenna is 111.5-feet (34-m) in diameter. They’re located in an area at Goldstone called “Apollo Valley.” This photograph was taken on Jan. 11, 2012. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech NASA’s Deep Space Network, the world’s largest and most powerful communications system for “talking to” spacecraft, will reach a milestone on ... More »
The Rose Bowl Legacy Foundation announced today the launch of the Rose Bowl Alumni Network. As the iconic venue approaches its centennial birthday on October 28, 2022, it is important to recognize the more than 100 million fans that have attended sporting and live entertainment events, as well as the countless community functions hosted on its Pasadena campus. The Alumni Network will provide an op... More »
NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope was able to detect a super Earth’s direct light for the first time using its sensitive heat-seeking infrared vision. Super Earth’s are more massive than Earth but lighter than gas giants like Neptune. As this artist’s concept shows, in visible light, a planet is lost in the glare of its star (top view). When viewed in infrared, the planet becomes brighter relative to... More »
Planet Nine – the undiscovered planet at the edge of the Solar System that was predicted by the work of Caltech’s Konstantin Batygin and Mike Brown in January 2016 – appears to be responsible for the unusual tilt of the sun, according to a new study. The large and distant planet may be adding a wobble to the solar system, giving the appearance that the sun is tilted slightly. “Because Planet Nine ... More »
? Since the first discovery of a planet outside our solar system 30 years ago, thousands more have been found. At first, discoveries of the new “exoplanets” trickled in, with each new planet grabbing headlines and bringing wonder to people around the world. As telescope instruments become more sophisticated, the discoveries became more common. Then, in 2009, NASA launched its planet-hunting Kepler... More »
This image of a sea-urchin embryo shows where two different regulatory genes are being expressed, labeled in fluorescent green and red. [Credit: Caltech/Isabelle Peter] As an animal develops from an embryo, its cells take diverse paths, eventually forming different body parts—muscles, bones, hearts. In order for each cell to know what to do during development, it follows a genetic blueprint, which... More »
