An unusual planetary system with three known ultra-low density “super-puff” planets has at least one more planet, according to new JWST observations by researchers from Penn State and Osaka University.

In his sustainable aviation course, aerospace engineering professor Phil Ansell asked, “What does sustainability look like integrated to a system engineering process?”  One of his student's answer became a new definition of sustainable aviation and a framework for achieving it.

In a paper published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology, Concordia researchers describe how they gathered useful data from a group of people living in extreme conditions, as well as the challenges they faced and the lessons they learned. 

Their subjects were members of an expedition organized by Spéléo Québec that was exploring a cave complex in the Sierra Negra Mountain, about 300 kilometres southeast of Mexico City. The researchers joined them halfway through a three-week mission. The cavers experienced daily physical exertion, isolation and spartan hygiene and sleeping quarters — a far cry from the strict parameters involved in orthodox lab work.

Scientists find that cometary dust affects interpretation of spacecraft measurements, reopening the case for comets like 67P as potential sources of water for early Earth. 

The notion of employing detonation to enhance aerospace propulsion systems has been explored for several decades. In a recent breakthrough, a novel detonation engine known as the Ram-Rotor Detonation Engine has emerged. This innovative engine integrates the processes of propellant compression, detonation combustion, and expansion within a single rotor, enabling it to markedly enhance propulsion efficiency across a broad range of flight Mach numbers.

The advent of the fifth-generation (5G) technology has revolutionized the way we think about communication networks, enabling a plethora of new use cases and scenarios that were not possible with previous generations of wireless technology. The existing 5G communication networks predominantly rely on terrestrial communication infrastructure, which, however, exhibits several notable limitations such as capacity constraints, latency issues, and energy inefficiencies, necessitating this next-generation leap. The 6G aims to provide a comprehensive solution for a hyperconnected, intelligent, and immersive digital ecosystem, seamlessly integrating terrestrial, airborne, and spaceborne networks which is referred to as the space-air-ground-sea integrated network (SAGSIN). A traditional SAGSIN scenario mainly includes 3 segments: spaceborne network, airborne network, and terrestrial network. The classical SAGSIN architecture has shown remarkable capabilities in providing massive connectivity by integrating spaceborne, airborne, and terrestrial cellular networks, which, however, encounters inherent technical challenges against their respective practical implementation. On the other hand, the philosophy of near-space communications (NS-COM) is gradually emerging. The distinctive location of near space which is 20 ~ 100 km above Earth’s surface positiones at the core of the SAGSIN, thus allowing the NS-COM network to address the shortcomings of traditional spaceborne, terrestrial, and airborne networks. NS-COM present a promising addition to SAGSIN, making them the final piece of the SAGSIN puzzle.

Where do you see patterns in chaos? It has been proven, in the incredibly tiny quantum realm, by an international team co-led by UC Santa Cruz physicist Jairo Velasco, Jr. In the journal Nature, the researchers detail an experiment that confirms a theory first put forth 40 years ago stating that electrons confined in quantum space would move along common paths rather than producing a chaotic jumble of trajectories.