Space

Japan's Rotating Detonation Engine

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has successfully tested a rotating detonation engine in space. A rotating detonation engine uses spinning explosions inside a ring channel to generate a large amount of efficient thrust using a smaller engine and a smaller amount of fuel.

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Solar Energy From Orbit

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Caltech are working on a solar energy project that will put solar panels in geo-stationery orbit to generate energy and beam that power using microwaves to the surface.

Innovation

Science

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Amateur Astronomer Discovers New Moon Of Jupiter

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Amateur astronomer Kai Ly discovered the existence of a new moon orbiting Jupiter by analysing 76 observations taken over 15 years.

Space

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Stratosphere Balloon Telescope

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SuperBIT (the Superpressure balloon-borne imaging telescope) is a football stadium sized balloon that will float around the world at 40,000 feet in the stratosphere to take precision images of space with a precision stabilised telescope suspended from the bottom. The project hopes to achieve Hubble level image results without the cost of a launching an orbital telescope into space.

Innovation

Science

Space

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Wooden Satellite

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Finnish company Arctic Astronautics plan to launch a 10 cm cubed cube satellite with a surface made of coated plywood, to test how wood performs in space as a component material.

Space

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Ocean Microplastic Satellite Detection

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Researchers at University of Michigan have discovered a technique to detect the build-up of microplastics in the ocean by measuring ocean surface roughness using the Cyclone Global Navigational Satellite System (CYGNSS).

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Russian Nuclear Spacecraft

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Russia's federal space agency Roscosmos announced plans for its nuclear power space tug spacecraft to go interplanetary in 2030 with missions to the Moon and Jupiter.

Science

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Ancient Storytelling Memory Technique

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Researchers in Australia conducted a memory test study where participants were asked to remember and recite a list of butterfly names. Using ancient aboriginal story telling techniques to encode knowledge, one group in the study were taught how to construct a story around the names. Another group were taught how to use the memory palace technique to remember the names, and the control group were left untaught.

History

Life

Space

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Low Earth Orbit Visualisation

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There are 16,197 objects in low earth orbit at last count. All of these can be seen in Leo Labs' great visualisation of low earth orbit. The data visualisation can filter the objects by categories such as perigee, inclination, and country of origin, among others.

Data Vis

Space

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Sound of Mars

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The NASA Sound of Mars website simulates how a range of sound clips sound on Mars versus on Earth. The differences in atmosphere and temperature mean sounds are attenuated, lower in volume, and slower.

Audio

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