Jupiter's moon Ganymede is the largest moon in the solar system; at over 3,200 miles across, it is larger than the planet Mercury. It is also the only moon with its own intrinsic magnetic field, produced by a churning central core of electrically conductive metal called a dynamo. But how Ganymede's unique dynamo works is […]

More than 2,000 students, teachers, and volunteers took part in the 2026 Southern California Science Olympiad State Tournament, hosted at Caltech and Polytechnic School in April. Organized nationwide, Science Olympiad competitions test teams of middle and high school students on their STEM knowledge and abilities.2026 marked the 11th year that Caltech has hosted the state […]

Growing up in Madrid, Spain, Adrián Lozano-Durán was always interested in aerospace. He was fascinated by planes, rockets, and how things flew. Today, he is an associate professor of aerospace at Caltech, where he develops models that accurately simulate phenomena such as the entry of spacecraft into the Martian atmosphere and the production of sound […]

Every year, the Future Leaders Program of the Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) chooses 31 distinguished graduate students and postdoctoral fellows specializing in chemistry or related fields to participate in an all-expenses-paid development program. Since its founding in 2010, the Future Leaders has selected over 400 recipients worldwide from 38 different nations. This year, the cohort […]

Quantum computers and other devices hold incredible promise for enabling new types of sensors and communications, improving simulations of physical and chemical systems, and ushering in new levels of secure cryptography. While dangling such possibilities, quantum advances also pose something of a conundrum: Once quantum systems are big enough, standard computers will not be powerful […]

Anyone who has ever used a microscope knows that it takes time to bring a sample into sharp focus. Each time you move the slide, the image blurs, and you have to stop and carefully turn a knob to bring everything back into clear view. For scientists and clinicians, even if the motion is semi-automated, […]

Avinash "Avi" Vadali, a fourth-year undergraduate studying physics, has been named a recipient of the Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans, one of the most selective graduate funding awards in the United States."I'm very honored to be joining this community of scientists, poets, artists, and musicians," Vadali says. "It's also nice to know […]

Ultrasounds are a critical part of modern health care, helping to image soft tissue and organs, measure blood flow, and monitor fetal development. But the technique has constraints, including a limited field of view and the potential for operator error. To address current shortfalls and push the technology toward new applications, Lihong Wang, Bren Professor […]

For more than a decade, scientists have been able to detect gravitational waves— ripples in space-time that help us understand the universe's evolution and the most violent events in the cosmos—using the US National Science Foundation's Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO), managed by Caltech and MIT. Now, a new ear on the cosmos will be […]

Shu-ou Shan, Caltech's Altair Professor of Chemistry, has been elected as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the nation's oldest honorary societies. She joins 251 other new members this year who have distinguished themselves in academia, the arts, industry, journalism, philanthropy, policy, research, and science."We celebrate the achievement of […]