Water

Howe Industries has submitted the design for a solar-powered steam rocket engine for propelling CubeSats to the National Science Foundation. With only two moving parts, ThermaSat uses a thermal condenser to flash boil water into superheated steam.

A new study by scientists at the University of Colorado has examined the role increased water intake can play in obesity, and found that it can work to reduce the condition in mice by suppressing a key hormone called vasopressin.

Weight is a premium on space launches, so the less we have to take with us, the better. Now engineers have developed a new electrolysis device that may be able to convert very salty Martian water into breathable oxygen and hydrogen for fuel.

Scientists at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have produced a material they say can selectively capture specific heavy metals from wastewater, and do so with unmatched speed and precision down to the atomic level.

Mars may be incredibly dry and dusty today, but evidence is piling up that it was once a watery world. Now the Curiosity rover has found signs of an ancient flood of biblical proportions, most likely kicked off by a climate-changing asteroid impact.

While reverse osmosis is a relatively energy-efficient form of seawater desalination, it is nonetheless made less efficient by a problem known as biofouling. A new membrane coating, however, could address biofouling like never before.

Jupiter’s moon Europa is a fascinating world, with a global subsurface ocean encased in an icy shell and plumes of water that vent into space. A new study has simulated how these plumes might originate, revealing a surprisingly dynamic ice ball.

While double-glazed windows do help save energy, scientists have tweaked the concept to make it even more effective. Instead of leaving an air gap between the two panes of glass, the researchers have inserted a heat-absorbing, light-blocking liquid.

Some types of water are too salty for current desalination systems to handle. Scientists have now developed a potential solution to this problem, with a solar-powered desalination system that resists corrosion thanks to a special coating.

Astronomers have detected water on the Moon. While that might sound familiar, previous reports were based on spectral signatures that could have been other compounds – this time, the detection is unambiguously water, in the molecular form we need.

A new study by the Centre de Recherches Pétrographiques et Géochimiques in Nancy, France suggests that Earth's water may have come from stony meteorites in the inner solar system rather than distant comets from billions of miles away.

Clean drinking water is a need that’s going unmet for many people. A new study has used a metal-organic framework (MOF) to filter pollutants out of seawater, generating large amounts of fresh water per day while using less energy than other methods.