Caltech

10/28/2026

Urban fires are chemically different beasts than wildfires. New Caltech research takes a closer look at the chemical makeup of the smoke from the 2025 Eaton Fire, finding that it was nothing like the plume of a typical wildfire. Real-time monitoring by the ASCENT network, allowed scientists to watch the plume’s chemical signature shift as the flames moved into wild lands. All ASCENT data are now available to the public through both a long-term archive and near-real-time tools on the network’s database.

Read more: https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/chemical-data-collected-from-the-eaton-fire-plume-help-characterize-urban-fires

10/28/2026

Exciting news for the future of STEM!

Today we're announcing support for university research at Caltech, Ohio State University College of Medicine, LSU, Indiana University, and UTHealth Houston to help advance breakthroughs across science and medicine.

As part of the support for university researchers, we’ll provide access to our latest Muse models, including Muse Wonder and Muse Spark; open weight models like Muse Glimmer and Muse Spark Open; computer vision models such as SAM, V-JEPA, and DINO; as well as SeamlessM4T, our multilingual communication model.

Here’s a look at the hard problems these five universities are tackling:

Caltech: Expanding our partnership with Caltech to test whether large language models can accelerate innovative research in mathematics and physical sciences – pushing the boundaries of what AI can do in rigorous scientific domains

Ohio State University College of Medicine: Developing AI workflows to assist radiologists screening X-rays, building AI tools for earlier heart failure detection, and building clinician-guided AI tools for Alzheimer’s diagnosis.

LSU: Implementing AI to improve non-contact infant tracheostomy monitoring, neurosurgical outcomes, VR training for medical professionals, and more.

Indiana University: Applying open-weight models to improve maternal-newborn care and learning, with a focus on tools that work with limited connectivity and accommodate diverse cognitive needs.

UTHealth Houston: Using Muse Glimmer, one of our smallest open-weight models, to support projects that improve treatment for brain cancer and agentic benchmarking in healthcare settings.

All healthcare research is conducted independently by participating universities, ensuring patient and clinical data remain under their control.

We’re excited to support these five universities as they use our models to accelerate the important work they’re doing.

Read more on our research blog: https://go.meta.me/47G6wV3

10/28/2026

Thayer (Ted) Scudder, Caltech’s only professor of anthropology for the latter half of the 20th century, passed away October 22 at the age of 96. He was regarded as a leading specialist on dams and their lasting effects on communities and global ecosystems.

Scudder was a fellow of the American Association of the Advancement of Science and won virtually every significant award in anthropology, including the Solon T. Kimball and Edward J. Lehman awards from the American Anthropological Association, the Lucy Mair Medal & Marsh Prize for Applied Anthropology from the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, and the Bronislaw Malinowski award from the Society for Applied Anthropology.

Read more: https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/caltech-mourns-the-passing-of-ted-scudder-19302026

10/27/2026

The Parsons-Gates administration team is ready to go on Giving Day. Your gift to the Caltech Fund today provides flexible support for research, learning, and discovery across the Institute. Give today: fund.caltech.edu/2026givingday.

10/27/2026

NEWS: Boom goes the dandelion. A Caltech-led team of astronomers have mapped, for the first time in 3D, the location and movement of filaments in the Pa 30 nebula—the aftermath of a supernova recorded by Japanese and Chinese astronomers in 1181. The remnants of this ancient stellar explosion were finally discovered in 2013 by amateur astronomer Dana Patchick. New observations with the Keck Cosmic Web Imager reveal Pa 30 has bright, dandelion-like tendrils that fly outward at 1,000 km per second! 👉
www.keckobservatory.org/dandelion-supernova

🎥 Artist's animation by Adam Makarenko Artist

10/27/2026

The official number of exoplanets has surpassed 6,000! And you can access data on all 6,007 of them right here at IPAC 📈 🪐
(Watch the video & read the full article: https://www.ipac.caltech.edu/news/the-nasa-exoplanet-archive-hits-6-000-planets )

The center of the exoplanet universe, or the NASA Exoplanet Archive, is hosted at NExScI Exoplanet Science Institute at Caltech IPAC. Today, on Sept. 17, the Exoplanet Archive's official count hit 6,007 confirmed exoplanets outside of our solar system.

Confirmed planets are added to the count on a rolling basis by scientists from around the world, so no single planet is considered the 6,000th entry, and there are more than 8,000 additional candidate planets awaiting confirmation.

IPAC scientists at NExScI are responsible for helping the community fully leverage all of the valuable data, as well as help the community double and triple check exoplanet detections.

“We really need the whole community working together if we want to maximize our investments in these missions that are churning out exoplanets candidates,” said Aurora Kesseli, the deputy science lead for the NASA Exoplanet Archive at IPAC. “A big part of what we do at NExScI is build tools that help the community go out and turn candidate planets into confirmed planets.”

10/27/2026

✨ One studies planets beyond our solar system. The other brought one of Star Trek's most beloved doctors to life aboard the Enterprise.

In Episode 4 of 𝗧𝗛𝗢𝗦𝗘 𝗪𝗛𝗢 𝗟𝗢𝗢𝗞 𝗨𝗣, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory exoplanet scientist Tiffany Kataria sits down with Gates McFadden (Dr. Beverly Crusher), bringing two very different perspectives together through a shared curiosity about the universe.

🚀 Watch Episode 4 of 𝗧𝗛𝗢𝗦𝗘 𝗪𝗛𝗢 𝗟𝗢𝗢𝗞 𝗨𝗣, a series from Roddenberry Entertainment featuring experts from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Caltech. Link in the comments.

10/27/2026

🪐 Star Trek has spent generations imagining what lies beyond our world. Planetary scientists are helping us discover what's actually out there.

In Episode 5 of 𝗧𝗛𝗢𝗦𝗘 𝗪𝗛𝗢 𝗟𝗢𝗢𝗞 𝗨𝗣, Gates McFadden (Dr. Beverly Crusher) meets Robert Pappalardo, planetary scientist at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. From the imagined frontiers of the Enterprise to the real science of planetary exploration, two worlds of curiosity come together.

🌌 Watch Episode 5 of 𝗧𝗛𝗢𝗦𝗘 𝗪𝗛𝗢 𝗟𝗢𝗢𝗞 𝗨𝗣, from Roddenberry Entertainment, featuring experts from JPL and Caltech. Link in the comments.

In the fifth interview from the Roddenberry series, Those Who Look ...

10/27/2026

10/19/2026

What scientific breakthroughs could quantum computing make possible?

Caltech Professor John Preskill explores the future of the field and its potential to drive progress in science, technology, and beyond in his talk at .

See the interview through the link in bio.