How do you measure the pose—that is the 3-D rotation and 3-D translation—of a piece of space junk so that a grasping satellite can capture it in real time in order to successfully remove it from Earth’s orbit? What role will deep learning algorithms play? And, what is real time in space? These are some of the questions being tackled in…
Tag: epfl
The smallest motor in the world
A research team from Empa and EPFL has developed a molecular motor which consists of only 16 atoms and rotates reliably in one direction. It could allow energy harvesting at the atomic level. The special feature of the motor is that it moves exactly at the boundary between classical motion and quantum tunneling – and has revealed puzzling phenomena to researchers…
Quantum effect observed in ‘large’ metal
In the world of materials science, sometimes main discoveries can be found in unexpected places. While working on the resistivity of a type of delafossite—PdCoO2—researchers at EPFL’s Laboratory of Quantum Materials discovered that the electrons in their sample did not behave entirely as expected. When a magnetic field was applied, the electrons retained signatures of their wave-like nature, which could be…
Is Mars still volcanically active? New study says maybe
Scientists studying the ancient Martian Tissint meteorite say they’ve found new evidence that Mars was volcanically active a few hundred million years ago … and may still be today. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/is-mars-still-volcanically-active-tissint-meteorite…
Introducing the light-operated hard drives of tomorrow
What do you get when you place a thin film of perovkite material used in solar cells on top of a magnetic substrate? More efficient hard drive technology. EPFL physicist László Forró and his team pave the way for the future of data storage. …