Science

Overlay of a star-trail photograph, in which stars (white arcs) appear to rotate around the north celestial pole, and a numerical simulation of time-invariant polarization lines (dark lines) as measured by a polarimetric camera during daytime. Courtesy: Thomas Kronland-Martinet (CNRS/Aix-Marseille University), and ESO/B Tafreshi (twanight.org) Can you tell which way is north just by looking

When the materials scientist Ross Colman and colleagues read a preprint claiming that a material called LK-99 is a superconductor at room temperature and ambient pressure, they set out to replicate the result in their lab. But unlike other scientists doing the same thing, Colman’s group decided to share their work with the public in

Wide open question: binary-star observations back MOND.(Courtesy: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center/Chris Smith (USRA)) A new study of data from the European Space Agency’s Gaia space mission claims to have found evidence of gravity acting contrary to the predictions of Newton and Einstein, but not everyone agrees that this is the smoking gun for a

TAMPA, Fla. — Viasat is in the early stages of exploring how to use L-band spectrum from newly acquired Inmarsat to connect consumer devices directly from space, including potentially from small satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO). “We are still exploring what our roadmap and execution plan should be,” Viasat president Guru Gowrappan said in

For millennia, humans have used units of measurement based on aspects of the human body. Familiar examples include the fathom (arm span) and the qubit (forearm length). Our guest in this episode of the Physics World Weekly podcast is the Finnish social scientist Roope Kaaronen, who has studied the development and use of body-based units

WASHINGTON — The startup Scout Space in partnership with the Stanford University Space Rendezvous Laboratory won a $1.5 million contract to help the U.S. Space to characterize spacecraft and debris objects, the company said Aug. 10. Scout, founded in 2019, is developing technologies for on-orbit navigation and tracking. It won a Phase 2 Small Business

TAMPA, Fla. — Small satellite operator Lynk Global has started initial direct-to-device services in a small part of the Cook Islands in its second commercial launch with a local telco. Phones on mobile operator Vodafone Cook Islands’ network can now periodically send and receive text messages via Lynk’s satellites around Manuae, an uninhabited island in

Good vibrations: the new sensing system uses interactions between photons and phonons to determine several properties of an optical fibre. (Courtesy: iStock/Gregory DUBUS) Researchers in China have shown how measurements of strain, temperature and vibration can be made simultaneously on a single optical fibre. This could be used to create a fibre-based system to monitor

LOGAN, Utah – The National Reconnaissance Office is eager to work with partners who are developing advanced technology for satellites and ground systems. “We’re eager to collaborate with industry and academia in advancing these capabilities and expanding our future architecture,” U.S. Space Force Col. Matt Allen, NRO Advanced Systems and Technology (AS&T) deputy director, said

TAMPA, Fla. — Starfish Space has secured $1.8 million from the U.S. Air Force’s AFWERX technology accelerator to develop its satellite guidance software, the in-orbit servicing startup announced Aug. 8. The 18-month Tactical Funding Increase (TACFI) will support work on Cephalopod, designed to enable a satellite to dock with another spacecraft using only electric propulsion,

WASHINGTON — True Anomaly, a startup based in Denver, will install Redwire’s navigation and sensing cameras on two inspector satellites it plans to launch next year. True Anomaly developed a small satellite named Jackal, designed to chase down uncooperative objects and take pictures up close.  The first two are scheduled to launch to low Earth

All in one: A photo of the photonic integrated circuit. The chip was fabricated in layers, with the laser on top and the waveguides at the bottom. (Courtesy: Chao Xiang) Researchers in the US have integrated ultralow-noise lasers and photonic waveguides onto a single chip for the first time. This long-sought-after achievement could make it

LOGAN, Utah — A quartet of cubesats launched in May to monitor the development of tropical storm systems is working just in time to support monitoring of the Atlantic hurricane season. Four cubesats for NASA’s Time-Resolved Observations of Precipitation structure and storm Intensity with a Constellation of Smallsats (TROPICS) mission launched on a pair of

In recent weeks the astrophysics community has been buzzing following the discovery that the universe appears to be filled with a background hum of gravitational waves. Using radio telescopes in the Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe and the US, several teams have noted the same thing: that gravitational waves leave a faint fingerprint in the signals

WASHINGTON — Lockheed Martin, a company that for decades has built schoolbus-sized spacecraft for the U.S. government, opened a new facility to assemble small satellites, which are now in higher demand.  Lockheed Martin’s 20,000-square-foot factory is located at the company’s Waterton campus near Denver, Colorado. It has six parallel assembly lines and capacity to manufacture

TAMPA, Fla. — LeoStella announced details about its largest spacecraft yet Aug. 6 with plans to deliver its first two 500-kilogram-class satellites to a commercial radar constellation customer next summer. The company’s LS300 satellite bus can reach the length of a small yacht at 10 meters across and has more than double the mass of

In the lab: the experimental thermocell at the University of Tokyo. (Courtesy: Teppei Yamada) A new “thermocell” that generates a voltage by exploiting temperature-related phase transitions in a pair of electrodes has been unveiled by researchers in Japan. Teppei Yamada at the University of Tokyo and colleagues hope that their new technology could lead to

SEATTLE — Astra Space announced Aug. 4 it has laid off a quarter of its workforce and reassigned others from launch vehicle to satellite propulsion development as its cash reserves dwindle. In a series of statements, the company said it was making a “strategic reallocation of its workforce,” moving 50 engineers from development of its