NASA has created four small cameras, each about the size of a computer mouse, to figure out what happens underneath a lunar lander when it lands on the moon. The small cameras are dubbed Stereo Camera for Lunar Plume-Surface Studies or SCALPSS. NASA's cameras are expected to head to the moon this year as a payload aboard the Intuitive Machines Nova-C lunar lander spacecraft.
The first NASA mission to the Trojan asteroids is called Lucy. The spacecraft is closer to launch after the Lucy team integrated its second scientific instrument called L'TES, or Lucy Thermal Emission Spectrometer. When complete, the spacecraft will have three scientific instruments, and Lucy project manager Donya Douglas-Bradshaw says having two of the three instruments integrated is an exciting milestone.
A company out of Norway called Zyrus Engineering has taken an already impressive performing car, the Lamborghini Huracan Performante, and made it perform better. The car the company created is known as the LP1200 Strada and results from two years of testing. Over those two years, the company spent 3728 miles on race tracks.
A major challenge when it comes to using robots to explore other planets is keeping them operating when there's no way to repair them from Earth. Researchers at the GRASP Lab at the University of Pennsylvania have conducted what they call very preliminary work on robots made from ice that can repair themselves. The team, including Devin Carroll and Mark Yim, note they have only begun exploring the possibility of making robots from ice.
Conductive ink has been around for a while and is a tool for printing flexible electronic circuits on various surfaces. One challenge with current conductive ink is that the ink can be expensive and is incompatible with some materials. Another challenge is that the conductive inks also tend to clog up the devices used to apply them. Researchers have created a new conductive ink that can be used on virtually any surface that is applied with a clog-free ballpoint pen.
NASA's Space Launch System rocket is ready to proceed to the final test in the Green Run series. The final test is the hot fire test and could happen as early as January 17. Hot fire is the cumulation of all the Green Run test series, which was an eight-part test campaign. The point of the test series was to gradually bring the core stage of the SLS rocket to life for the first time.
Mazda President Jeff Guyton recently conducted a Q&A session where he talked about some of what the automaker has up its sleeves in the future. One of the topics covered during the session had to do with Mazda's plans for the future. Guyton says that the automaker plans to reduce the environmental impact of its fleet of vehicles by 90 percent by 2050. Part of the plan does include electric vehicles but will also include extremely fuel-efficient combustion vehicles.
A group of researchers in Malaysia has developed a technique to take waste material from the pineapple farming industry and turn it into disposable parts for drone aircraft. The technique developed takes a fiber found in usually discarded pineapple leaves and harnesses it to make a robust material that can be used to build frames for unmanned aircraft. The project's goal has been to find sustainable uses for pineapple waste generated by farmers in the Malaysian area of Hulu Langat.
NASA has announced that it has approved the preliminary design plans for an upcoming space telescope known as SPHEREx. According to NASA, the Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoque of Reionization, and Ices Explorer (SPHEREx) space telescope has entered Phase C. Entering Phase C means with the preliminary design plans approved, work can begin on a final, detailed design.
Current OLED displays have a challenge when it comes to blue light sources. While there are red and green organic light-emitting diodes with high performance, the availability of similarly performing blue light sources is lacking. Researchers in Japan have used a new combination of emitter molecules and demonstrated a new approach that may overcome this challenge.
It's not uncommon for the first hint that a product is getting ready to launch to come in the form of filings made with the FCC. Any new electronic device that launches publicly in the US must have FCC approvals for various components inside the device. A recent FCC filing for the Microsoft Surface Pro 8 suggests that the new PC could launch soon.
Something rather strange has been going on in Yellowstone National Park. The park is home to some of the most famous geysers in the world, and in 2019 a geyser known as the Steamboat Geyser in the Norris Geyser Basin at the park erupted. That was notable because this particular geyser had its first documented activity in 1878 and has only erupted sporadically since then.