Exoplanets are experiencing a stratospheric rise. In the three decades since the first confirmed planet orbiting another star, scientists have catalogued more than 4,000 of them. As the list grows, so too does the desire to find Earth-like exoplanets—and to determine whether they could be life-sustaining oases like our own globe.

The coming decades should see the launch of new missions that can gather ever-larger amounts of data about exoplanets. Anticipating these future endeavors, a team at the University of Washington and the University of Bern has computationally simulated more than 200,000 hypothetical Earth-like worlds—planets that have the same size, mass, atmospheric composition and geography as modern Earth—all in orbit of stars like our sun.

The chemical in moth balls, naphthalene, will be tested in space in a new satellite rocket propulsion system, Bogong, developed at The Australian National University (ANU).

Scientists have designed the innovative thruster, with a familiar odor, in only six months from design to delivery. Primary testing was conducted on campus at ANU.

The Bogong will launch into space in mid-2022 amid a group of half a dozen small satellites that Australian space services company Skykraft will test for tracking and communication with aircraft, facilitated by the Canberra-based space company Boswell Technologies.

ANU Ph.D. scholar Mr Dimitrios Tsifakis, came up with the idea for using hot naphthalene as opposed to hot charged gas plasma systems as a rocket thruster for small satellites.

"Naphthalene is ideal because when it is heated it goes straight from solid to gas, with no liquid sloshing about in the thruster," he said.

"It is cheap, non-corrosive and easily available.

"You can get moth balls in the supermarket. Everyone knows that old smell in granny's wardrobe; now it is the newest thing in space technology.