All articles tagged with #california institute of technology
Employees at California's Jet Propulsion Laboratory face potential layoffs due to ongoing U.S. government shutdown and uncertain NASA budget allocations, with the number of layoffs still unclear but possibly affecting thousands of staff, as the agency's future remains uncertain amid political budget disputes.
Harvard University and the California Institute of Technology will require SAT or ACT scores for admission, reversing their earlier decisions to make testing optional, with the new policy applying to students seeking admission in fall 2025 and applicants to Caltech needing to submit scores this fall, a year before its testing moratorium was set to expire.
Engineers successfully rescued a satellite, the Space Solar Power Demonstrator (SSPD-1), from a wire snag that had caused it to become tangled during deployment in space. The satellite, designed to demonstrate how to deploy modular satellites in space, encountered multiple challenges during deployment, including a jamming issue that had never been seen in laboratory testing. Despite these setbacks, the satellite ultimately succeeded in its mission, gathering solar energy for over 240 days using new types of solar cells. The troubleshooting process has provided valuable insights for future satellite designs, and the hope is to mass-produce these cells to make solar power more affordable.
Scientists at the California Institute of Technology believe that the planet, Theia, which collided with Earth billions of years ago, could still be inside Earth and may have led to the formation of the Moon. Dense material detected under large parts of Africa and the Pacific Ocean, known as large low-velocity provinces (LLVPs), is believed to be remnants of Theia. The LLVPs contain high levels of iron and react differently to seismic waves than surrounding solids. Further research is needed to understand why the remnants of Theia are grouped around Earth's mantle.