Ray Jayawardhana begins his tenure today as the 10th president of the California Institute of Technology. His selection as Caltech’s president, and as the Sonja and William Davidow Presidential Chair and professor of astronomy, was announced Jan. 6. Jayawardhana succeeds Thomas Rosenbaum, who had served as Caltech’s president since 2014. Founded in 1891, Caltech manages […]
On a bleak stretch of the Colorado Desert in Southern California, a compact four-wheeled rover recently trundled about 16 miles (26 kilometers) with minimal intervention from the team of engineers trailing it. Called ERNEST (Exploration Rover for Navigating Extreme Sloped Terrain), this prototype is being used by NASA to advance both robotic autonomy and the […]
Satellite observations of sea surface height indicated that the 2026 event continued to strengthen in early June.
Astronauts aboard the International Space Station have switched on NASA’s newly upgraded Cold Atom Lab, a one-of-a-kind facility designed to improve how scientists explore the fundamental workings of matter and develop new quantum technologies. By leveraging the unique environment of microgravity in space, the lab can accomplish cutting-edge science impossible to do anywhere else. Quantum […]
Celebrating its 90th anniversary this year, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory invites the public to its campus at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains in Southern California for an open-house event, Explore JPL. On Oct. 10 and 11, from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. PDT, visitors will get the chance to visit JPL’s most iconic facilities and explore four thematic areas: Missions That Changed the World, Moon to Mars, In […]
Equipped with rock picks and hand lenses, a team of geoscientists deployed to the Mojave Desert recently to investigate a tantalizing “fingerprint” detected by a NASA sensor. Their target: a cache of topaz hiding in plain sight. The geologists weren’t searching for gem-grade treasure. Rather, the presence of topaz could hint at a more valuable […]
A compact, multifrequency radar built by a team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory will make it easier to collect information about dynamic cloud systems. Called CloudCube, this new instrument simultaneously probes the atmosphere with three radar signals, spanning 36 to 240 GHz, for optimized sensitivity to a wide range of water droplet and ice particle sizes.
The first mission devoted to observing the Martian atmosphere and its evolution, NASA’s MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution), has ended after more than 11 years in orbit at Mars and a decade beyond its primary, one-year mission. The spacecraft was heard last on Dec. 6, when it experienced an unexpected loss of signal after […]
Radar data from an agricultural area in South Africa, shown in a vivid color palette, reveal crop types and how they changed during the Southern Hemisphere’s growing season.
Scientists analyzed 20 Martian samples collected by NASA’s Curiosity Rover and found that differences in hematite crystallite size at varying elevations could serve as a new mineralogical marker for understanding Mars’ ancient climate.