One of the biggest limitations with space travel has to deal with fuel. It takes a massive amount of it just to leave the Earth’s atmosphere, and then the rocket needs to make it to its destination, and then (ideally) make its way back home. And all that fuel takes up a lot of space which creates more weight, meaning you need more fuel. It is an endless cycle of needing more…to do more…so you need more…to do more. Which makes long space flights difficult to plan for. Aerospace engineers (rocket scientists) are always looking for new ways to power spacecraft, and one team from the University of Central Florida is working in partnership with Honeybee Robotics, and have found a way that would make the creators of early engines proud.

These innovators have devised a system that uses steam power for their ships. Yes, you read that correctly, steam! As in hot water vapor. Not exactly what you would think of when imagining space travel right? Well they have decided to try just that, and are actually fairly successful as they have tested a prototype already..and it worked! The ship drills into the ground where it lands, pulls up some good ol’ H2O and uses the steam generated from that water to take off. Pretty amazing if you ask me! Now obviously the ship can only go where there is water to pull up, but as we are discovering, it may not quite be as rare in the universe as we once thought. Either way, this is an incredibly unique system and shows that even old technology can be used to power the future.

In the second half of the 20th century, the world gained a new obsession with the moon. Before, it had simply been a wondrous ball in the sky that had captured imaginations for thousands of years. But starting with Sputnik, the first human made object in space, in 1957, the moon seemed a little closer than it had before. And in 1969, the first humans set foot on the moon, in what was an amazing and awe inspiring feat for the globe. Now, 50 years later, Chinese scientists have pulled off a new first with our closest extraterrestrial neighbor; they have landed a probe on the dark side of the moon!

What is the dark side of the moon you ask? Does it never see the sunlight? Is it always night time there? The answer to this is no, it is not always dark! It sees the sunlight at times, just the same as you and me. What it does not see, is Earth. The Earth and the Moon have a unique relationship where the Moon is close enough to our home that gravity keeps the same side facing us at all times, meaning you have never seen the other side in your life, and it has never seen you. The reason we call it “dark” is because of this reason that we have never seen it. Check out the video from a NASA satellite below to see what the other side looks like (and yes, I promise it is real!)

So congratulations to all involved in this impressive feat. It seems as though in the last few decades we have left the moon alone because we have been there and there is no life, so people seem to think there is not much more we can learn from visiting. But humans are made to explore, and while we may have been there before, it is the first point to the next stop in our solar system. So maybe it does have something to teach us in the end.

Earth is a biosphere which has been explored by human inhabitants for thousands of years.  In this time, we have thought to have found a vast majority of the species that inhabit the planet with us.  The truth is, there are parts of this Earth that have creatures that we could never imagine lying within its depths.

Over 40 scientists from 17 different countries teamed up in September to explore the Atacama Trench, which is located about 7 miles deep below Peru and Ecuador.  The temperature in the trench is freezing, the pressure is high, and the knowledge of the area is scarce.  Thankfully, the scientists were able to use state of the art cameras, and other tracking devices to search the depths for undiscovered species.

The adaptations that are necessary for creatures to live in depths of the ocean are incredible, in the sense that there are little to no other animals on Earth that have the ability to sustain life in places such as the Atacama Trench.  The team found three new species, one of which being the Atacama snailfish.

It truly is remarkable how many species we have yet to discover, and even more incredible that we have developed the technology that gives us the ability to navigate areas which were impossible only a few decades ago.

Smart homes have been in the works for years. Recently, more established tech organizations have been putting out newer and more highly advanced smart home products. But before that, a company in Scotland developed the x10. All of the products are receivers and they make up the controlling of the system.  An example of this is turning off a lamp that’s in a different room. The appliance being used sends an alert that is transferring the command, it identifies the unit number for the device that should receive the command, and it scans the numerical code that correlates with the command. In this case it is to turn off the lamp. Although the x10 had many families intrigued, other companies have competed to have more efficient products and more customers. Instead of going through the power lines like the x10, many updated systems use radio waves to communicate (which is how Bluetooth and WiFi signals work). With companies exceeding previously held technological limitations, homes all over the world will soon have these new advancements and will continue to grow alongside technology.

The NASA InSight mission has finally landed on Mars after a long seven months of traveling through space. While on Mars, the spacecraft will examine Mars’ surface to give scientists a deeper understanding of the terrestrial make-up. This is the eighth Mars landing in human history, and the landing itself lasts all of seven minutes. In order to land, the spacecraft, InSight, needed to slow its speed of travel from 12,300 mph to just 5 mph within those seven minutes. Engineers at NASA expertly designed the spacecraft to successfully travel though space and land safely on Mars. Hopefully, with the knowledge gained from this mission, NASA will be more prepared to send humans to Mars next!

 

Looking for more information? Here’s a cool video to learn more about the InSight Mission!