For nearly 20 years, the Simons Foundation has worked to advance mathematics and the physical sciences through grants and educational programs. Now the organization is taking its support of research one step further by naming 21 scientists as the first-ever Simons Investigators. Caltech physicists Chris Hirata and Hirosi Ooguri are among this inaugural group of recipients, each of whom are eligible to receive more than $1.3 million over the next ten years to fund innovative research.

Researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) have developed a new type of amplifier for boosting electrical signals. The device can be used for everything from studying stars, galaxies, and black holes to exploring the quantum world and developing quantum computers.

NASA's NuSTAR space telescope has taken its first image, snapping a shot of the high-energy X rays from a black hole in the constellation Cygnus. NuSTAR—short for Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array—was launched on June 13, and is the first telescope that can focus high-energy X rays. It will explore black holes, the dense remnants of dead stars, energetic cosmic explosions, and even our very own sun.