Science

TAMPA, Fla. — Amazon vowed to double the annual launch rate for its low Earth orbit broadband constellation to more than 20 missions, hinging largely on rockets yet to prove themselves at scale. With three more missions slated in the coming weeks, the company said March 23 it is on pace to complete 11 launches

A few years ago, I took a zombie test. I had flown to Madison, Wisconsin, to visit neuroscientist Giulio Tononi and learn about his much-debated theory of consciousness, integrated information theory. The most tangible outcome of Tononi’s work is a consciousness detector, which has been used to check whether unresponsive patients are wide awake inside.

Rocket re-entry pollutes the upper atmosphere – Physics World Skip to main content Discover more from Physics World Copyright © 2026 by IOP Publishing Ltd and individual contributors Read the original article here

WASHINGTON — SpaceX Chief Executive Elon Musk revealed more technical, but not financial, details about his company’s plans to deploy an orbital data center constellation. At a March 21 event in Austin, Texas, Musk outlined an initiative by SpaceX, along with automaker Tesla and artificial intelligence company xAI — also run by Musk — to

The BASE-STEP transportable trap system Marina Cavazza, Chetna Krishna/CERN Nestled in the heart of CERN’s antimatter factory, surrounded by intensely powerful magnetic fields and within a vacuum sparser than interstellar space, is some of the most sensitive material on Earth. Inside a filing-cabinet-sized box, which weighs a few hundred kilograms less than a Ford Focus,

Rechargeable liquid solar battery stores sunlight in molecules – Physics World Skip to main content Discover more from Physics World Copyright © 2026 by IOP Publishing Ltd and individual contributors Read the original article here

WASHINGTON — The Artemis 2 launch vehicle and spacecraft have returned to the launch pad for a launch as soon as April 1. The mobile launch platform carrying the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft emerged from the Vehicle Assembly Building at 12:20 a.m. Eastern on March 20, nearly four and a half hours

Two engineers work on one of Qilimanjaro’s quantum computers Qilimanjaro Quantum computers once seemed like fanciful machines of the future. Now, a DIY kit means that anyone with enough money and engineering skills can have one of their own. Barcelona-based quantum computing company Qilimanjaro created EduQit by taking a “flatpack furniture” approach – gathering all

Is ‘vibe physics’ the future? – Physics World Skip to main content Discover more from Physics World Copyright © 2026 by IOP Publishing Ltd and individual contributors Read the original article here

WASHINGTON — Rocket Lab launched the latest in a series of satellites for Japanese radar imaging company Synspective on March 20. An Electron lifted off from Rocket Lab’s Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand at 2:10 p.m. Eastern and deployed Synspective’s StriX satellite 55 minutes later into a planned orbit at an altitude of 573

Artist’s depiction of the asteroid 2025 MN45 NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory/NOIRLab/SLAC​/AURA/P. Marenfeld The Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile has spotted the fastest-rotating large asteroid ever seen. Despite measuring more than half a kilometre across, this asteroid spins about once every 1.9 minutes – a speed once thought to be impossible. Dmitrii Vavilov at

Extracting entropy information from quantum dots – Physics World Skip to main content Discover more from Physics World Copyright © 2026 by IOP Publishing Ltd and individual contributors Read the original article here

Part of SpaceNews’ Orbital Data Centers Series The growth of artificial intelligence and cloud computing are driving a surge in global electricity demand. Hyperscale data centers already consume vast amounts of power and water, and utilities in many regions are struggling to keep pace. As governments grapple with grid constraints and rising energy costs, the

A probiotic cream could make visits to extremely cold environments a little bit safer Aurora Photos, USA Polar explorers and deep-water divers could one day apply a probiotic cream to their skin to ward off frostbite or hypothermia. This optimism comes after scientists genetically engineered bacteria that naturally live on our skin to detect temperature,

From the classroom to the committee room: Dave Robertson MP on politics and physics – Physics World Skip to main content Discover more from Physics World Copyright © 2026 by IOP Publishing Ltd and individual contributors Read the original article here

Maj. Gen. Keener: The exercise will help Space Command ‘better understand commercial challenges, requirements, and how we can better work together’ The post Space Command classified wargame to include 25 commercial players appeared first on SpaceNews. Read the original article here

NASA’s Perseverance rover is on the hunt for gems NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS The Perseverance rover has found precious stones inside Martian pebbles. These gem grains are made of a substance called corundum, which is also known as ruby or sapphire depending on the traces of metals within it. Ann Ollila at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New

Surface contamination holds the key to a static electricity mystery – Physics World Skip to main content Discover more from Physics World Copyright © 2026 by IOP Publishing Ltd and individual contributors Read the original article here