Caltech Associates and Guests Get an Inside Look into Caltech’s Newest Building the Cahill Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics

Pasadena, Calif.—The California Institute of Technology (Caltech) has a brand new building on its campus, with it’s red-orange exterior and unique footprint, it is truly a spectacular new addition. The building, the Cahill Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics, finally gives scientists who study the outer reaches of space some space of their own.

The Cahill Center boasts 100,000 square feet of offices, laboratories, and common areas. Designed by the Los Angeles-based firm Morphosis (led by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Thom Mayne) and built by general contractor Hathaway Dinwiddie, the building is both highly functional and visually impressive. But what is perhaps most important about the Cahill Center is that it allows some 300 of Caltech's top ranked astronomy and astrophysics faculty and graduate students to work together in a building dedicated to their needs for the first time in more than 40 years.

On Saturday, October 17, over 120 guests and members of the Caltech Associates, a support organization for Caltech, were given an exclusive opportunity to see inside the Cahill Center with the chair of the physics, math, and astronomy division, Dr. Andrew E. Lange.

After a reception in the Cahill Center’s library and patio, the guests moved into the Hameetman Auditorium to hear Lange discuss “Going to the Ends of the Earth in Search of the Beginning of Time”. Lange has been a leader in developing new techniques for studying the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) , the relic glow of the Big Bang.  In 1999, using a new detector technology developed at JPL and a novel balloon-borne telescope flown over the Antarctic, his group made the first resolved images of the CMB. Analysis of these images provided the first definitive measurement of the geometry of the Universe, and evidence that the Universe is composed primarily of exotic forms of matter and energy never observed in terrestrial laboratories.

After Lange’s exciting talk on the CMB and new research being done in the division of physics, math and astronomy, the guests were led on tours of the building by Lange and other faculty members, giving the guests exclusive access to faculty laboratories and insights into the unique design and functionality of the Cahill Center. It was a truly memorable experience for the Caltech Associates and their guests.

The Associates is a group of individuals who are interested in science and technology and the future of research. Their support of Caltech and the research of faculty members like those in the Cahill Center, enables them to participate in programs in northern and southern California and the east coast, foreign and domestic travel with Caltech faculty, and behind-the-scenes tours of Caltech laboratories. People interested in more information about the Associates and how you can join, please visit http://associates.caltech.edu/ or contact the Associates at 626-395-3919.