Science

Cool, cooler, supersolid: Images of the dipolar atoms cooling down and forming the supersolid state. As the system cools, periodic density peaks emerge. (Courtesy: Maximilian Sohmen)”> Cool, cooler, supersolid: Images of the dipolar atoms cooling down and forming the supersolid state. As the system cools, periodic density peaks emerge. (Courtesy: Maximilian Sohmen) Supersolids – materials

The Aerospace study says a discussion on weather satellite investments could be elevated to White House-level bodies like USGEO and ICAMS WASHINGTON — The U.S. government is poised to make large investments in environmental monitoring satellites but these efforts are not well coordinated across agencies that acquire these systems and the users of data collected

TAMPA, Fla. — EchoStar hopes the third time will be a charm for the U.S. satellite operator racing to secure global non-geostationary S-band rights this summer. The company plans to lock down these spectrum rights ahead of an Aug. 10 deadline with a nanosatellite launching before the end of June, EchoStar Satellite Services president Anders

Alternative interpretation: artistic interpretation of a black-hole merger. (Courtesy: LIGO/T Pyle) A compelling alternative explanation for what astrophysicists believe is the largest black hole merger measured to date has been put forth by two astronomers in Germany. Alexander Nitz and Collin Capano at the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics argue that the gravitational wave

LandSat 7 Satellite still delivering after 20 years; RI&S has eyes on what’s next The land-observing satellite was supposed to work for five years. Now, more than 20 years later, Landsat 7 is still going strong. In April 2021, the satellite marked its 22nd year of serving as a set of eyes on our home

WASHINGTON — A new House bill would classify space as a critical infrastructure and require the federal government to establish guidelines to protect it. The Space Infrastructure Act, to be introduced June 4 by Reps. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) and Ken Calvert (R-Calif.), would add space systems to the 16 sectors currently classified as critical infrastructure

Grand designs: the Giant Array for Neutrino Detection project aims to detect ultrahigh-energy neutrinos originating from deep space using 200,000 antennas spread across mountainous regions around the world. (Courtesy: GRAND) The annual greenhouse gas emissions of a planned neutrino experiment could be on a par to the production of 1000 cars. That is according to

TAMPA, Fla. — Early-stage space investor Seraphim Capital reportedly plans to list shares on London’s stock exchange, following a growing number of its own investments to the public markets.  U.K.-based Seraphim has hired Deutsche Bank and JP Morgan to work on an initial public offering (IPO) that would raise around $355 million, reported Sky News

State Farm, Asteroid falling to Earth, CC BY 2.0 By Allison Kubo Hutchison Recently published in Science, research focusing on the plants, rather than the usual star of the show, dinosaurs, reveals new information about the evolution of rainforests. But don’t worry we will talk about dinosaurs later. In the field of paleobotany, the study

The five-year sole-source contract is for operations and maintenance of SBIRS ground control centers WASHINGTON — Lockheed Martin received a $1 billion contract to operate and maintain the ground control systems of the U.S. military’s Space Based Infrared System geostationary satellites, the U.S. Space Force announced June 4.  SBIRS is part of the Defense Department’s missile

Taken from the June 2021 issue of Physics World. Members of the Institute of Physics can enjoy the full issue via the Physics World app. One of the hottest topics in solid-state physics is having a fluid makeover. As Jon Cartwright reports, the consequences of topological behaviours in fluid dynamics could be far-reaching for our

WASHINGTON — Virgin Galactic has signed an agreement to fly a private researcher on a future suborbital flight, part of efforts diversify its business beyond space tourism. Virgin Galactic announced June 3 that Kellie Gerardi, affiliated with the International Institute of Astronautical Sciences (IIAS), will fly on a future SpaceShipTwo dedicated research flight. Gerardi will

Program manager Greg Spanjers:  ’We don’t see SpaceX as being the only viable provider of this capability’ WASHINGTON — U.S. Air Force officials on June 4 expressed enthusiasm about the possibility that commercial space vehicles one day could be used to ship supplies around the world.  “This never really made sense in the past” but

Black holes are nature’s fastest data-scramblers, and new research suggests that secrets thrown into them may be more secure than previously thought. In a paper published in Physical Review Letters, researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in the US show that once a message has been scrambled by a black hole or another system

Chief scientist Joel Mozer: ‘We are trying to anticipate what’s coming and prepare for an uncertain future’ WASHINGTON — A group of senior military leaders, scientists and other space professionals met this week in Colorado Springs to discuss the future of the U.S. Space Force. “We are trying to anticipate what’s coming and prepare for

TAMPA, Fla. — Private equity firm TPG has poured $100 million into weather services startup Climavision, which will marry satellite and terrestrial radar observations to improve climate intelligence. Louisville, Kentucky-based Climavision emerged from stealth mode June 2 after being borne out of Enterprise Electronics Corporation, a 50-year old U.S. supplier of weather radar systems with

The astrophysicist Catherine Heymans has made history by becoming the first female Astronomer Royal for Scotland, an office that was created in 1834. In this episode of the Physics World Weekly podcast, she talks about her new role and how she will use it to show that science is relevant to everyone. One initiative she

WASHINGTON — For the first time in more than three decades, NASA has announced it will send a robotic mission to Venus, selecting two proposals in the latest round of its Discovery program. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson announced at the end of a “State of NASA” speech at NASA Headquarters June 2 that the DAVINCI+