Space exploration
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Rocket science got a bit more science-fiction-like as RocketStar announces it has successfully demonstrated a new ion drive that incorporates nuclear fusion. It's not the sort of fusion that powers the Sun, but it does improve thrust by 50%.
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A giant quantum vortex has been created in superfluid helium in a lab at the University of Nottingham. Its behavior was found to mimic that of black holes and may help astrophysicists gain deeper insight into these galactic gravity gobblers.
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A revolutionary alternative to conventional rockets that uses controlled explosions has completed its first long-duration engine test as part of Venus Aerospace's partnership with DARPA to develop a Rotating Detonation Rocket Engine.
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Data from NASA's Juno Jupiter orbiter suggests that the Jovian moon Europa produces about 26 lb/s (12 kg/s) of oxygen or almost 100 times less than previously estimated. This changes the probability of life being found in the moon's subterranean ocean.
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As the Odysseus Moon lander faces its final hours, there's one final twist in the saga: The spacecraft broke one of its legs on landing, thanks to a cascade of mistakes that began back on Earth, when a safety switch wasn't flicked on prior to launch.
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Beating incredible odds, Japan's SLIM lunar lander came back to life after surviving the intense dark and cold of the Moon's night. On February 25, JAXA confirmed that it had temporarily reestablished communications with the robotic spacecraft.
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The IM-1 Moon landing mission will come to a premature end on Tuesday morning. Intuitive Machines has announced that Odysseus will no longer be able to charge its batteries by February 27, as sunlight stops falling on its solar panels. RIP Odie.
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Intuitive Machines says that its Odysseus Moon lander tripped and fell over on touchdown and is now lying on its side. One of the legs of the robotic spacecraft dug into the lunar surface during landing maneuvers, making it fall over on a rock.
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With 2023 drawing to a close, it's once again time to look at the significant, intriguing, and sometimes just plain daft science stories of the year. So, let's dive in and see what the science types have been up to.
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Researchers have found that deep space travel can cause long-lasting erectile dysfunction. With crewed space missions planned for the near future, the findings highlight the importance of considering astronauts’ sexual health.
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Astronomers have witnessed a phenomenon never seen before, a luminous fast blue optical transient (LFBOT) emitting more energy than hundreds of billions of stars the size of the Sun. Dubbed the Tasmanian Devil, it threw out energetic flares for months.
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NASA’s anticipated Roman Space Telescope is taking shape, and will soon measure light from a billion galaxies, perform a microlensing survey deep in the Milky Way, monitor hundreds of millions of stars and peer into unseen galactic neighborhoods.
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