New LEO constellation design boosts satellite-based computing for 6G networks
Peer-Reviewed Publication
Updates every hour. Last Updated: 10-Jan-2026 18:11 ET (10-Jan-2026 23:11 GMT/UTC)
Want faster internet from space? A new study shows how smarter satellite layouts can boost both data and computing power—cutting costs while improving coverage.
On December 8, 2025, Space: Science & Technology was officially indexed in the Web of Science: Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE). All articles published since 2021 will be progressively included into the SCIE database.
The Bharat Innovates 2026 National Basecamp was inaugurated at the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar (IITGN), marking a significant milestone in India’s efforts to identify, strengthen, and globally position its most promising deep-tech innovations. Held from December 18 to 20, 2025, the three-day event brings together approximately 400 startups and research-led innovations that have been shortlisted through a rigorous national screening process. Organised under the aegis of the Ministry of Education and the Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser (PSA) to the Government of India, and coordinated jointly by the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IITB) and IITGN, the event saw attendance from scientific luminaries, founders, business leaders, venture capitalists, investors, and sci-tech enthusiasts.
Speakers at the inaugural session highlighted the programme’s role in strengthening research commercialisation, industry–academia linkages, and policy-backed innovation ecosystems. The closed-door pitching sessions and open deep tech exhibition showcased Innovations spanning 13 strategic domains, including AI, semiconductors, energy, healthcare, manufacturing, and space technologies. The Basecamp serves as a critical mentoring and evaluation stage ahead of the International Showcase to be held next year in France, where Indian technologies will take their place on the global stage.
Multimillion research to create the first ever 3D movies of black holes will combine pioneering international expertise in black hole imaging with cutting-edge artificial intelligence developed in the UK.
Dr Kazunori Akiyama has been awarded a £4 million Faraday Discovery Fellowship through the programme's Accelerated International Route, to be hosted by Heriot-Watt University. The project, named TomoGrav, brings together the pathbreaking expertise of Dr Kazunori Akiyama and Professor Yves Wiaux.
Dr Akiyama developed one of the computational imaging algorithms and co-led the entire imaging team as part of the wider Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration efforts to create the first images of black holes. Professor Yves Wiaux’s groundbreaking artificial intelligence algorithms are transforming how scientists reconstruct images from incomplete data.
Dr Akiyama and Professor Wiaux are supported by a multidisciplinary team of 10 world-renowned partners from across the world, whose combined expertise will deliver the work.
The funding will see Dr Akiyama move from his present role as a Research Scientist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Haystack Observatory in the USA to Heriot-Watt University in Scotland as part of the scheme which provides long-term funding to talented mid-career researchers.
Using revolutionary imaging technology, the research is expected to transform understanding of the universe's most extreme environments by revealing how black holes behave and evolve across time.
Black holes are cosmic laboratories where gravity results as a byproduct of the warping of spacetime. Gas swirling around them is heated to extreme temperatures and accelerated to nearly light speed, generating powerful jets of magnetised plasma that are thought to influence the form of the largest scale structures in the universe.
The new research builds on the 2019 and 2022 photographs of two supermassive black holes, M87* and Sagittarius A*, which captivated billions of people worldwide and opened an entirely new scientific area which uses imaging to study gravity and black holes.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — NASA’s VIPER rover, designed to map water on the moon, has reached another major milestone with help from Sandia National Laboratories and its one-of-a-kind testing capabilities.
“We’ve built a rover that is designed to go and prospect for water on the moon, but the vehicle must be certified for mission,” said Dave Petri, NASA VIPER system integration and test lead. “We need to be sure its structure is properly designed and built to survive the mission, including the launch environment.”
Science has named the seemingly unstoppable growth of renewable energy worldwide as the 2025 Breakthrough of the Year. Since the Industrial Revolution, humanity has relied on fossil fuels like coal, oil, and gas for energy. Carbon emissions from these finite resources have greatly contributed to accelerated climate warming. However, 2025 marked a significant shift in this paradigm as renewable energy generated from the Sun and wind began to surpass conventional fossil fuel-based energy production in several domains. This year, global renewable energy, led by solar and wind, grew fast enough to cover all the world’s new electricity demand in the first half of the year, and now supplies more electricity than coal worldwide. This transition is being led by China, whose efforts to scale up solar panels, wind turbines, and lithium battery storage have cemented the nation as a global leader in renewable energy production and technology. Elsewhere, small-scale rooftop solar systems – made affordable and widely accessible by China’s manufacturing dominance – are spreading rapidly, particularly across Europe, South Asia, and the Global South, and provide reliable, low-cost energy security for millions. Already, existing renewables have demonstrably slowed the growth of greenhouse emissions in China, hinting at a global turning point in addressing ongoing climate warming. What’s more, further technological innovations in this space, such as more efficient solar cells and battery chemistries, for example, promise to extend the reach and effectiveness of renewable energy. Many obstacles remain, however, including continued widespread coal use, infrastructure bottlenecks, and political resistance in some regions (including the United States). Yet, despite these challenges, this year’s breakthrough suggests that the transition from fossil fuels to clean, renewable energy is not just possible – it’s accelerating – and rapidly becoming the most practical and cost-effective choice.
Podcast: A segment of Science's weekly podcast with Greg Miller, related to this research, will be available on the Science.org podcast landing page [http://www.science.org/podcasts] after the embargo lifts. Reporters are free to make use of the segments for broadcast purposes and/or quote from them – with appropriate attribution (i.e., cite "Science podcast"). Please note that the file itself should not be posted to any other Web site.