Science

TAMPA, Fla. — Airbus is expanding its partnership with in-orbit servicing venture Astroscale to explore ways to collaborate beyond potentially removing space junk and refueling satellites. The companies announced a memorandum of understanding (MoU) Aug. 12 — between Airbus Defense and Space and the Japanese venture’s British subsidiary — to focus on U.K.-based in-orbit servicing and

Cattle farming produces large amounts of greenhouse gases Alan Hopps/Getty Images With the world’s population growing, the only way to reduce the enormous greenhouse gas emissions from farming is to make food production ever more efficient. Unfortunately, efficiency gains have stalled since 2010, meaning farming emissions – and deforestation – could rise sharply as demand

Liquid water could abound in Martian crust, seismic study suggests – Physics World Skip to main content Close search menu Discover more from Physics World Copyright © 2024 by IOP Publishing Ltd and individual contributors Read the original article here

WASHINGTON — Rocket Lab launched a Capella Space radar imaging satellite Aug. 11 on a mission that illustrated the flexibility offered by, but also the challenges facing, small launch vehicles. The Electron lifted off from Pad B at Rocket Lab’s Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand at 9:18 a.m. Eastern after a two-hour delay caused

A building’s design can influence its temperature Alistair Scott/Getty Images Walls with a protruding zigzag pattern could stay up to 3°C (5.4°F) cooler than regular walls, without using any energy. This approach could reduce the energy used by cooling systems and thus help limit global warming. “With this kind of design, we can have a

Peering inside the biological nano-universe: Barbora Špačková on unveiling individual molecules moving in real time – Physics World Skip to main content Close search menu Discover more from Physics World Copyright © 2024 by IOP Publishing Ltd and individual contributors Read the original article here

LOS ANGELES— NASA is requesting concepts from companies and organizations willing to take over a robotic lunar rover that the agency announced last month it would cancel even through it is nearly complete. NASA issued a request for information (RFI) Aug. 9 for the operation of the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) spacecraft. NASA

Illustration of a tidal disruption event Mark Garlick/Science Photo Library/Getty Images Astronomers have caught a supermassive black hole eating a giant star in the biggest and brightest example of this powerful event ever seen. It could be the missing link that helps us understand mysteriously bright cosmic objects in the centres of some active galaxies.

CERN’s Science Gateway picked by Time magazine as one of the ‘world’s greatest places’ to visit – Physics World Skip to main content Close search menu Discover more from Physics World Copyright © 2024 by IOP Publishing Ltd and individual contributors Read the original article here

TAMPA, Fla. — Eutelsat plans to carve out ground segment infrastructure worth about 790 million euros ($863 million) and then sell most of the teleport service business to a private equity fund, the French fleet operator announced Aug. 9. The operator is in exclusive talks to sell 80% of the ground station-as-a-service business — comprising

JN.1 spread widely despite many people being vaccinated and having previous covid-19 infections Debarchan Chatterjee/NurPhoto/Shutterstock One mutation may have been crucial to the covid-19 variant JN.1 spreading rapidly around the world last year, demonstrating how quickly the virus can adapt. “A single mutation in JN.1 was key for it to evade the antibody response, and

Pumping on a half-pipe: physicists model a skateboarding skill – Physics World Skip to main content Close search menu Discover more from Physics World Copyright © 2024 by IOP Publishing Ltd and individual contributors Read the original article here

LOGAN, Utah — The Department of Commerce remains on schedule to begin the initial version of its space traffic coordination service by the end of September while it works to add capabilities to it. In an Aug. 6 presentation at the Small Satellite Conference here, Christine Joseph, policy advisor in the Office of Space Commerce,

Commercially available quantum technology could let stock traders coordinate decisions to buy or sell nearly instantaneously using a technique called “quantum telepathy” Read the original article here

Abdus Salam: celebrating a unifying force in global physics – Physics World Skip to main content Close search menu Discover more from Physics World Copyright © 2024 by IOP Publishing Ltd and individual contributors Read the original article here

LOGAN, Utah — NASA is evaluating options to have the two astronauts who flew to the International Space Station on a Boeing CST-100 Starliner spacecraft return instead on a SpaceX Crew Dragon in early 2025, given questions about the safety of Starliner. At a Aug. 7 briefing, NASA officials said they expect to decide around

Blackworms are ultra-fast swimmers, and they tangle up into worm balls to protect themselves from predators – but leeches have an ingenious method of catching them called “spiral entombment” Read the original article here

Physicists detect nuclear decay in the recoil of a levitating sphere – Physics World Skip to main content Close search menu Discover more from Physics World Copyright © 2024 by IOP Publishing Ltd and individual contributors Read the original article here