For mathematicians like Tom Hutchcroft, who joined the Caltech faculty last year as a professor of mathematics, the most interesting aspect of percolation is what happens during a phase transition, the point where an abrupt qualitive change in the system occurs. "You only change one factor in the system a tiny bit, and then you get a big change," he says. A classical phase transition occurs when water freezes.

Caltech has received the necessary permits from the county and state of Hawai‘i to begin the physical deconstruction of the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory (CSO) from Maunakea.

"Caltech is set to begin the deconstruction phase of the decommissioning later this summer, with removal and restoration completed within a year," says Caltech physics professor and CSO director Sunil Golwala. It will be the first observatory removed under the 2010 Decommissioning Plan for Maunakea Observatories.

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has peered into the chaos of the Cartwheel Galaxy, revealing new details about star formation and the galaxy’s central black hole. Webb’s powerful infrared gaze produced this detailed image of the Cartwheel and two smaller companion galaxies against a backdrop of many other galaxies. This image provides a new view of how the Cartwheel Galaxy has changed over billions of years.

The Cartwheel Galaxy, located about 500 million light-years away in the Sculptor constellation, is a rare sight. Its appearance, much like that of the wheel of a wagon, is the result of an intense event – a high-speed collision between a large spiral galaxy and a smaller galaxy not visible in this image. Collisions of galactic proportions cause a cascade of different, smaller events between the galaxies involved; the Cartwheel is no exception.