Caltech

Articles tagged with "GPS"

05/02/2013

Brown, Farley, and Seinfeld Elected to National Academy of Sciences

Kimm Fesenmaier

Based on their distinguished achievements in original research, three Caltech professors—Mike Brown, Ken Farley, and John Seinfeld—are among the 84 members and 21 foreign associates newly elected to the National Academy of Sciences.

04/23/2013

Mars Science Laboratory: The Search for Habitable Environments

Douglas Smith

John Grotzinger, Caltech’s Fletcher Jones Professor of Geology, is the project scientist for JPL’s newest Mars rover—Curiosity, the Mars Science Laboratory. The rover is exploring the floor of Gale Crater, and Grotzinger will describe its discoveries so far during a free public lecture at 8 p.m. on Wednesday, April 24, in Caltech’s Beckman Auditorium.

03/05/2013

A Window Into Europa's Ocean Lies Right at the Surface

Kimm Fesenmaier

If you could lick the surface of Jupiter's icy moon Europa, you would actually be sampling a bit of the ocean beneath. So says Mike Brown, an astronomer at Caltech. Brown and Kevin Hand from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) have found the strongest evidence yet that water from the vast liquid ocean beneath Europa's frozen exterior actually makes its way to the surface.

02/28/2013

Planetary Astronomer Wins Feynman Prize for Excellence in Teaching

Marcus Woo

John A. Johnson, assistant professor of planetary astronomy at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), has been awarded the Richard P. Feynman Prize for Excellence in Teaching.

02/11/2013

Under the Hood of the Earthquake Machine

Douglas Smith

What makes an earthquake go off? Why are earthquakes so difficult to forecast? Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Geophysics Nadia Lapusta gives us a close-up look at the moving parts, as it were, at 8:00 p.m. on Wednesday, February 13, 2013, in Caltech's Beckman Auditorium. Admission is free.

01/24/2013

Johnson Wins Astronomy Prize

Brian Bell

John A. Johnson, assistant professor of planetary astronomy at Caltech, received the 2012 Newton Lacy Pierce Prize at the 221st meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS), in Long Beach, California.

01/24/2013

Knutson Wins Award

Brian Bell

Heather A. Knutson, an assistant professor of planetary science at Caltech, is the 2012 recipient of the Annie Jump Cannon Award in Astronomy.

01/14/2013

Research Update: Atomic Motions Help Determine Temperatures Inside Earth

Katie Neith

In December 2011, Caltech mineral-physics expert Jennifer Jackson reported that she and a team of researchers had used diamond-anvil cells to compress tiny samples of iron—the main element of the earth's core. By squeezing the samples to reproduce the extreme pressures felt at the core, the team was able to get a closer estimate of the melting point of iron. At the time, the measurements that the researchers made were unprecedented in detail. Now, they have taken that research one step further by adding infrared laser beams to the mix.

01/09/2013

Faulty Behavior

Katie Neith

In an earthquake, ground motion is the result of waves emitted when the two sides of a fault move—or slip—rapidly past each other, with an average relative speed of about three feet per second. Not all fault segments move so quickly, however—some slip slowly, through a process called creep, and are considered to be "stable," or not capable of hosting rapid earthquake-producing slip. One common hypothesis suggests that such creeping fault behavior is persistent over time, with currently stable segments acting as barriers to fast-slipping, shake-producing earthquake ruptures. But a new study by researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) shows that this might not be true.

01/02/2013

Planets Abound

Marcus Woo

Look up at the night sky and you'll see stars, sure. But you're also seeing planets—billions and billions of them. At least. That's the conclusion of a new study by astronomers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) that provides yet more evidence that planetary systems are the cosmic norm. The team made their estimate while analyzing planets orbiting a star called Kepler-32—planets that are representative, they say, of the vast majority in the galaxy and thus serve as a perfect case study for understanding how most planets form.