Caltech

Articles tagged with "JPL"

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.

04/17/2013

Astronomers Discover Massive Star Factory in Early Universe

Marcus Woo

PASADENA, Calif.—Smaller begets bigger.

04/08/2013

The Caltech Space Challenge: Mission to a Martian Moon

Marcus Woo

The mission: travel to one of Mars's two moons, explore its surface, collect some rocks, and return to Earth in one piece. Now plan it—in five days.

03/12/2013

Astronomers Observe Planets Around Another Star Like Never Before

Marcus Woo

PASADENA, Calif.—Thanks to a new high-tech gadget, astronomers have observed four planets orbiting a star relatively close to the sun in unprecedented detail, revealing the roughly ten-Jupiter-mas

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.

02/05/2013

Viewing the Cosmos from the South Pole: An Interview with Jamie Bock

Marcus Woo

Almost immediately after the Big Bang—roughly after ten trillionths of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second—the universe suddenly grew. Very fast.

12/13/2012

A Close Encounter of the First Kind

Douglas Smith

A new era in planetary science began in 1962, when Mariner 2 and the 200-inch Hale telescope simultaneously took a close look at Venus.

11/19/2012

One Metal Scoop, Slightly Used

Douglas Smith

On November 20, 1969, Apollo 12 astronauts Charles Conrad and Alan Bean paid a visit to JPL's Surveyor 3, which had landed on the moon two and a half years earlier.

11/25/2012

Seeing the World in a Grain of Sand

Douglas Smith

José Andrade has got the dirt on dirt. An associate professor of civil and mechanical engineering at Caltech, Andrade will discuss how the actions of a few grains of sand can affect landslides, earthquakes, and even Mars rovers. He will be speaking at 8:00 p.m. on Wednesday, November 28, 2012, in Caltech's Beckman Auditorium. Admission is free.

10/16/2012

Cassini Turns 15

Douglas Smith

Fifteen years after its launch, the Cassini mission to Saturn continues to give us a close-up, long-term view of the ringed planet and its astonishingly diverse collection of moons. Here are some of the highlights so far.