Science

As U.S. adversaries seek to militarize space, SLS’s heavy-lift capability makes it a unique entity for NASA and national security. Robust congressional support for SLS, NASA’s near-term Artemis missions and future configurations is more important than ever. In the early morning of Nov. 16, 2022, America reaffirmed its role as the leader in space. The

TAMPA, Fla. — The European Union reached a provisional agreement Nov. 17 to cover nearly half the 6 billion euro ($6.2 billion) cost of deploying a secure connectivity constellation by 2027. The European Parliament and member states agreed on a deal to contribute 2.4 billion euros from 2023-2027 for a sovereign network of satellites called

Evenly spaced: illustration of the optical spectrum of a frequency comb. (Courtesy: J Wang/NIST) A new technique that could vastly improve the accuracy of the time and distance measurements made using dual optical frequency combs has been developed by researchers in the US and Canada. By the dynamic adjustment of one of the combs, Emily

Extra spooky: Artist’s impression of entangled and delocalized atoms within the interferometer. (Courtesy: Steven Burrows, Thompson group/JILA) For most people, quantum mechanics seems pretty weird. Take the principle of delocalization, which states that a quantum particle can, in some sense, exist simultaneously in multiple locations. Then there’s entanglement: the invisible connection between particles that allows

Join the audience for a Women in Medical Physics live webinar at 3 p.m. GMT/10 a.m. EST on 14 December 2022 exploring how to begin a new MR-Linac program for MRIdian in your radiation oncology department Want to take part in this webinar? From Laura Bassi to Marie Curie, for centuries, women have been making

Support package A new report by the Institute of Physics calls on the government to incentivize quantum start-up firms in the UK. (Courtesy: iStock/Quardia) The UK government must be bold and ambitious to position the country as a world leader in the global quantum technologies market. So says a new report released last month by

Superposition on a massive scale: illustration of a mass-quantized black hole that was created using NightCafe Creator AI. (Courtesy: University of Queensland) Quantum superposition is not just a property of subatomic particles but also of the most massive objects in the universe. That is the conclusion of four theoretical physicists in Australia and Canada who

In this episode of the Physics World Weekly podcast the physicist Susanne Horn talks about the career of Donna Elbert, an American applied mathematician who worked on Nobel-prize-winning physics but did not get the credit she deserved. Based at Coventry University, Horn also talks about her recent research, which builds on Elbert’s pioneering work in

Cash generator The UK quantum start-up firm Universal Quantum has been awarded €67m from the German Aerospace Centre. (Courtesy: Universal Quantum) A British quantum start-up firm has been awarded one of the largest government quantum-computing contracts ever given to a single company. Universal Quantum has won the €67m contract from the German Aerospace Center (DLR) to

Ever played that game where you jump around inside your house trying not to touch the floor because it’s made of lava? Nathan Hellner-Mestelman wonders what would happen if the floor really were made of hot, molten rock Dangerous stuff The aim is to avoid touching the ground when playing Floor is Lava – but

Medical television shows sometimes depict thoughts skipping across the brain as action potentials that ignite like exploding stars. While it looks dramatic and impressive, today’s brain imaging technologies can’t visualize brain activity so sensitively. A new magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technique called DIANA – direct imaging of neuronal activity – may get us closer, though.

Several ronnagrams: Earth as seen by the crew of Apollo 17. (Courtesy: NASA) Say hello to the first new SI prefixes since 1991. At the humongous end of the scale, ronna and quecca now denote 1027 and 1030 respectively. Apparently, the mass of the Earth is six ronnagrams, or 6 Rg. At the miniscule end of

LAS VEGAS — Boeing announced Oct. 26 it will take yet another charge against earnings because of delays in the CST-100 Starliner commercial crew program, bringing the total losses recorded by the company to date on the program to nearly $900 million. In a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Boeing announced a

This article is part of a series of essays written by Black physicists and co-published with Physics Today as part of #BlackInPhysics week 2022, an event dedicated to celebrating Black physicists and their contributions to the scientific community, and to revealing a more complete picture of what a physicist looks like. This year’s theme is

LAS VEGAS — Partner agencies on the International Space Station program say they are in discussions about how they will use, and pay for, commercial space stations that will replace it. Representatives of several countries currently involved in the ISS said during a panel at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics’ ASCEND conference here

Gen. DT Thompson: ‘You’re going to see a significant increase in the resources for the United States Space Force’ WASHINGTON — Gen. David “DT” Thompson, U.S. vice chief of space operations, said the Space Force is likely to see continued funding increases to counter China’s rapid advances in its space program.  “You’re going to see

This article is the second in a series of essays written by Black physicists and co-published with Physics Today as part of #BlackInPhysics Week 2022, an event dedicated to celebrating Black physicists and their contributions to the scientific community, and to revealing a more complete picture of what a physicist looks like. This year’s theme

LAS VEGAS — Orbit Fab, a startup developing infrastructure for in-space refueling of satellites, announced Oct. 25 it lined up a new investor to support those plans. Orbit Fab said that 8090 Industries was a “new major investor” in the company, but did not disclose the size of the investment. The company had previously raised