SpaceX Mars Prototype Rocket Nails Landing For the First Time, But Explodes On Pad

A SpaceX rocket prototype, known as SN10, soared over South Texas during test flight Wednesday before swooping down to a pinpoint landing near its launch site. Approximately three minutes after landing, however, multiple independent video feeds showed the rocket exploding on its landing pad. CNN reports: SpaceX’s SN10, an early prototype of the company’s Starship Mars rocket, took off around 5:15…

A Folding iPhone Could Be Coming In 2023

Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo says that Apple could be launching a folding iPhone in 2023, and that the phone could have a screen between 7.5 and eight inches. The Verge reports: There have been numerous reports about Apple prototyping a folding iPhone, but according to MacRumors, Kuo says that the product has “not yet officially kicked off.” According to Kuo, the screen…

What is a quasar?

A quasar is an extremely bright and distant point-like source visible to radio telescopes. The source is a so-called Active Galactic Nucleus, fueled by a supermassive black hole. Source: https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/definition-what-is-a-quasar…

Sergey Brin’s Airship Aims To Use World’s Biggest Mobile Hydrogen Fuel Cell

Sergey Brin’s secretive airship company LTA Research and Exploration is planning to power a huge disaster relief airship with an equally record-breaking hydrogen fuel cell. From a report: A job listing from the company, which is based in Mountain View, California and Akron, Ohio, reveals that LTA wants to configure a 1.5-megawatt hydrogen propulsion system for an airship to deliver humanitarian…

A unique prototype of microbial life designed on actual Martian material

Experimental microbially assisted chemolithotrophy provides an opportunity to trace the putative bioalteration processes of the Martian crust. A study on the Noachian Martian breccia Northwest Africa (NWA) 7034, composed of ancient (ca. 4.5 Gyr old) crustal materials from Mars has delivered a unique prototype of microbial life experimentally designed on actual Martian material. As the researchers show in the current issue…

Coca-Cola Begins Testing a Paper Bottle

“Coca-Cola is to test a paper bottle as part of a longer-term bid to eliminate plastic from its packaging entirely,” reports the BBC: The prototype is made by a Danish company from an extra-strong paper shell that still contains a thin plastic liner. But the goal is to create a 100% recyclable, plastic-free bottle capable of preventing gas escaping from carbonated…

Quantum systems learn joint computing

Today’s quantum computers contain up to several dozen memory and processing units, the so-called qubits. Severin Daiss, Stefan Langenfeld, and colleagues from the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Garching have successfully interconnected two such qubits located in different labs to a distributed quantum computer by linking the qubits with a 60-meter-long optical fiber. Over such a distance they realized…

Satellite spots SpaceX’s Starship SN9 from space ahead of explosive test flight

New satellite imagery shows SpaceX’s Starship prototype poised on the launch pad ahead of its high-altitude test flight Tuesday (Feb. 2), which saw the prototype crash-land after successfully completing complex maneuvers in flight. Source: https://www.livescience.com/spacex-starship-sn9-satellite-images-before-explosion.html

SpaceX Starship prototype rocket crashes in fireball … again

A prototype of a SpaceX rocket the company hopes will one day journey to Mars crashed in a fiery explosion as it tried to land upright after a test flight Tuesday. Source: https://phys.org/news/2021-02-spacex-starship-prototype-rocket-fireball.html…