california institute of technology

Astrobiologists suspect there could be alien life just out of reach in our solar system, in oceans hidden beneath icy crusts on moons circling Jupiter and Saturn. But unlike the surface of Mars, which can be explored by rovers and landers, these mysterious oceans are currently inaccessible to us. In an effort to change that, researchers convened this year to design a novel mission that could finally reveal what’s in those distant water worlds. “Even AI Rappers are Harassed by Police” | AI UnlockedThe proposed probe,…

Researchers have developed a new method to create compact mode-locked lasers on photonic chips, using lithium niobate for active mode-locking. This technology promises to bring large-scale ultrafast laser experiments to a chip-scale format, with plans to further shorten pulse durations and increase peak powers.Caltech has innovated a method for creating compact, integrated mode-locked lasers on photonic chips, potentially transforming ultrafast laser applications to smaller scales with enhanced performance.Lasers have…

Space manufacturing startup Orbital Composites and space energy company Virtus Solis have announced a collaboration to bring space-based solar power even closer to reality. The two have announced a megawatt-scale space-based solar power station that can collect energy from the Sun and beam it down to Earth.This Summer’s Hottest UmbrellaThe two companies announced a memorandum of understanding via press release yesterday which will see Virtus develop core technologies like the power station’s electronics and antennas…

The California Institute of Technology has big news for space-based power. Researchers at the university have reportedly beamed solar power from space to Earth without a single wire—and they say it’s a first.This Summer’s Hottest UmbrellaThe experiment is a part of Caltech’s Space Solar Power Project, and the institute announced a successful transmission via press release yesterday. The researchers conducted the power transfer experiment using the Microwave Array for Power-transfer Low-orbit Experiment, or MAPLE, which is…

A comet-like asteroid has been flaunting a tail of material as it approaches the Sun. But unlike its cometary counterparts, a fresh look at asteroid Phaethon reveals, this tail is made of sodium rather than dust, as was previously thought. What Is Planet Nine and Why Can’t We Find It?The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), a joint mission between NASA and the European Space Agency, recorded new observations of Phaethon as it passed near the Sun in May 2022. SOHO’s Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph imaged…

NASA has released an interactive map of Mars made from over 100,000 images taken by the agency’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter; the mosaic is the highest-resolution global portrait of Mars ever made.What Was Your First Experience with Super Mario Bros? | io9 InterviewThe map is the creation of scientists at the Murray Laboratory for Planetary Visualization at the California Institute of Technology. Comprising 5.7 trillion pixels, it offers a sweeping, black-and-white look at Mars. It is a tremendous amount of data, so you…

Now you see it, now you don’t: Titan’s enigmatic island. Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASI/CornellSaturn’s moon Titan is arguably the most alien place in the solar system, with its thick atmosphere, hydrocarbon seas, giant dust storms, ice volcanoes, and precipitation in the form of raining methane and ethane. In 2013, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft spotted a 100-square-mile (260 square km) island-like geological formation in Ligeia Mare, one of Titan’s largest seas. Previous scans showed no signs of this feature, and it proceeded…

Analysis of Stephan’s Quintet, a vivid set of galaxies in the distant universe, by two telescopes has revealed details of how the galaxies (and the hydrogen gas within them) interact.One of the galaxies in the quintet is rapidly intruding on the others’ personal space, producing a shockwave in the region traveling at about 500 miles per second. A recent research team found clouds colliding, a system with a tail, and a possible dwarf galaxy being formed.The galaxies were observed by two large observatories—one on land and…

If you thought entangling qubits using the Fibonacci sequence was confusing, you’d better hold onto something. A team of physicists recently found that quantum systems can imitate wormholes, theorized shortcuts in spacetime, in that the systems allow the instantaneous transit of information between remote locations.The research team thinks their findings could have implications for probing quantum gravity—the catch-all term used to marry quantum mechanics and Newtonian gravity, which doesn’t affect quantum particles the…

University of Washington campus.Photo: Karen Ducey (Getty Images)Diversity & Gender StudiesDiversity studies broadly tackle social constructs and systemic issues in society, examining factors like race, ethnicity, sociality, class, and age, among others. Gender studies focus on the social structures that have historically defined gender and current ideas about gender. Taken together, the two disciplines investigate the breadth of factors that define and shape society, as well as how we treat one another. Our No. 1…