@interestingengineering

The US Navy has established a new division tasked with overseeing operations of all its medium and large unmanned vessels. #engineering #interestingengineering #navy #usnavy

ETH Zurich, the Swiss federal institute, recently opened its new Center for the Origin and Prevalence of Life, an interdisciplinary institute to analyze the current and future observations of the Earth and the universe. During the opening ceremony, astrophysicist Sasha Quanz said that we might be able to detect the presence of life outside our solar system in the next 25 years.⁠ ⁠ The claim might sound too ambitious, especially when, after years of work, we are still not sure if planets inside the solar system can support life. However, Quanz recollected that it was only the year 1995 that we had discovered the first planet outside our solar system. In less than three decades, we now have a potential list of 100 billion exoplanets to be discovered in the Milky Way galaxy alone.⁠ ⁠ Astronomers are of the view that the 100 billion stars in the galaxy have at least one planet in their orbit that would be at the right distance from it to have liquid water and support conditions for life. What astronomers need to find out is whether these exoplanets have an atmosphere and what it is made up of. ⁠ ⁠ Find out more at the link in bio.🚀⁠ #engineering #interestingengineering

Rocket scientists in China are working to develop a boron-powered supersonic missile that can fly like a commercial airliner and then swim in the water to act as a torpedo. The range and speed of the missile are expected to be much larger than any torpedo developed so far.⁠ ⁠ Boron is a highly reactive light element that reacts equally well with water as it does with air to release vast amounts of heat. The U.S. Air Force experimented with boron in the 1950s to increase the power of its supersonic bombers. However, the project was shelved since ignited boron is hard to control and also forms a layer of debris that impacts rocket performance. ⁠ ⁠ Find out more at the link in bio.🚀⁠ #engineering #interestingengineering⁠ ⁠ #science #research #beijing #space #scientist #asia

What is a planet? As it turns out, the struggle to define what constitutes a planet is closely tied to our understanding of the Universe, which has evolved considerably in the past twenty years. ⁠ ⁠ It also demonstrates that the scientific community is not entirely devoid of politics and divisiveness. ⁠ ⁠ Find out more at the link in bio.🚀⁠ #engineering #interestingengineering ⁠ #earth #space #stars #galaxy #environment #science #sky

Scientists have developed a life-saving innovation using 3D printing technology.⁠ ⁠ The development is 'life-saving' because the tool helps replicate the microbes- also known as life-threatening bacteria.⁠ ⁠ Find out more at the link in bio.🚀⁠ #engineering #interestingengineering

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has captured the most detailed and painstakingly sharp images ever taken of the inner region of the Orion Nebula, known as the "picture book of star formation." The stellar nursery is situated in the constellation Orion, 1,350 light-years away from Earth.⁠ ⁠ The images were obtained as part of the Early Release Science program and involved more than 100 scientists in 18 countries, in a collaboration called PDRs4All, according to a release. The team, which comprised institutions including the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), Western University in Canada, and the University of Michigan, started the project in 2017 and waited for five long years to get the data.⁠ ⁠ Find out more at the link in bio.🚀⁠ #engineering #interestingengineering

China announced its plans to launch three new uncrewed missions to the Moon after the discovery of a new lunar mineral that could be harvested as an energy source in the future.⁠ ⁠ China’s National Space Administration announced on Saturday, September 10, that it was given the green light to start planning the launch of three new orbiters to the Moon over the next decade. The new missions will form a part of the country’s ongoing Chang’e lunar program. ⁠ ⁠ Find out more at the link in bio.🚀⁠ #engineering #interestingengineering

A new wearable has been created by a team of experts that may benefit those who are color blind.⁠ ⁠ The research team has devised a technique employing 3D printing to produce personalized glasses.⁠ ⁠ Even though using dyes to develop lenses for spectacles to correct colorblindness is not novel, these 3D glasses seem to break fresh ground.⁠ ⁠ Find out more at the link in bio.🚀⁠ #engineering #interestingengineering

The brightest star in the sky may not be a star for much longer. It could be a colossal internet satellite featuring a giant antenna array covering an area of 689 square feet for regular cellphones to access the internet from space.⁠ ⁠ A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched the BlueWalker 3 satellite — the largest commercial communications array ever flown in space built by Texas-based firm AST SpaceMobile —to ride low into Earth orbit over the weekend. ⁠ ⁠ Find out more at the link in bio.🚀⁠ #engineering #interestingengineering

The first programmable computer was invented 200 years ago but it was made of brass and steel, not electronics. #interestingengineering #engineering #inventions

New technology to detect lethal explosives designed to maim and kill has been tested by researchers from the Demining Research Community, a non-profit organization that bridges academic research and humanitarian demining efforts.⁠ ⁠ The researchers have been in Oklahoma for two weeks setting up grids of mines and munitions to train a drone-based, machine-learning-powered detection system to find and identify harmful explosives without the need for people to do so, Scientific American magazine reported on Wednesday.⁠ ⁠ Find out more at the link in bio.⁠ #Engineering

The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has begun a program called the AdvaNced airCraft Infrastructure-Less Launch And RecoverY X-Plane, nicknamed ANCILLARY, that aims to develop and flight demonstrate technologies required for the production of a vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL), low-weight, high-payload, and long-endurance aircraft.⁠ ⁠ Find out more at the link in bio.⁠ #Engineering ⁠

IBM has built a super-fridge known as project Goldeneye that is capable of cooling future generations of quantum experiments and that surpasses the issues found in today’s dilution refrigerators, according to a blog published by the firm on Thursday.⁠ ⁠ The company's engineers said that the new device may not be slated for use with any of the current IBM Quantum processors but that building it taught them important lessons on how to overcome these challenges.⁠ ⁠ Find out more at the link in bio.⁠ #Engineering ⁠

What comes to mind when you think of members of the public launched into space? You won't be alone if it's the likes of Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin or Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic. Furthermore, it was only last September when Elon Musk's SpaceX completed the first all-civilian flight into orbit.⁠ ⁠ Find out more at the link in bio.⁠ #Engineering ⁠

Human beings have a conflicted relationship with the Sun. People love sunshine but then get hot. Sweat gets in your eyes. Then there are all the protective rituals: the sunscreen, the hats, the sunglasses. If you stay out too long or haven’t taken sufficient precautions, your skin lets you know with an angry sunburn. First, the heat, then the pain, then the remorse.⁠ ⁠ Were people always this obsessed with what the Sun would do to their bodies? As a biological anthropologist who has studied primates’ adaptations to the environment, I can tell you the short answer is “no,” and they didn’t need to be. For eons, skin stood up to the Sun.⁠ ⁠ Find out more at the link in bio.⁠ #Engineering ⁠