Week in images: 01-05 May 2023

Discover our week through the lens

Menlo Park CA (SPX) May 04, 2023
Photosynthesis plays a crucial role in shaping and sustaining life on Earth, yet many aspects of the process remain a mystery. One such mystery is how Photosystem II, a protein complex in plants, algae and cyanobacteria, harvests energy from sunlight and uses it to split water, producing the oxygen we breathe. Now researchers from the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Dulles VA (SPX) May 04, 2023
Raytheon Technologies (NYSE: RTX), announced the launch of NexGen Optix, a tactical Free-Space Optical Communications system that enables high-speed, secure data transfer in challenging environments. NexGen Optix, developed by Raytheon Blackbird Technologies, provides greater bandwidths in a form factor that is smaller, weighs less, uses less power and costs less than conventional optical

Oak Ridge TN (SPX) May 04, 2023
An Oak Ridge National Laboratory-developed advanced manufacturing technology, AMCM, was recently licensed by Orbital Composites and enables the rapid production of composite-based components, which could accelerate the decarbonization of vehicles, airplanes and drones. Additive manufacturing compression molding, or AMCM, uses short-fiber-filled polymer and continuous fiber to print directl

San Francisco (AFP) May 4, 2023
A US regulator put artificial intelligence in the crosshairs ahead of a White House meeting Thursday with tech firms to strategize about its dangers. "While the technology is moving swiftly, we already can see several risks," Federal Trade Commission chief Lina Khan wrote in a guest essay in the New York Times. "Enforcers and regulators must be vigilant." The tough talk comes as US l

Michelle Smith for GOES News
Washington DC (SPX) May 04, 2023 GOES-U, the fourth and final satellite in NOAA's GOES-R Series, recently completed a successful test deployment of its solar array to ensure it will function properly in space. This critical test verified that the satellite's large, five-panel solar array - which is folded up when the satellite is launched - will properly deploy when GOES-U reaches geostat

Forres UK (SPX) May 05, 2023
Orbex has announced that construction has begun at Sutherland Spaceport (formerly known as Space Hub Sutherland) in Scotland, making this the first vertical launch spaceport to be built on the UK mainland. Located on the North coast of Scotland, the spaceport will be the 'home' spaceport of Forres-based rocket and launch services company, Orbex, which will use the site to launch up to 12 orbital

Leiden, Netherlands (SPX) May 05, 2023
Searching for life's building blocks lightyears away is an important task of the James Webb Space Telescope. But how does it know what to look for? PhD student Marina Gomes Rachid is offering a helping hand by mapping out molecules that could exist in deep space. Imagine the headlights of a car on a misty day. A beam of light becomes visible in the fog, revealing particles of moisture floa

Baltimore MD (SPX) May 05, 2023
Our universe is so capricious it sometimes likes to play a game of hide and seek. In 2017, astronomers were surprised to see a huge shadow sweeping across a disk of dust and gas encircling the nearby young star TW Hydrae. The shadow is cast by an inner disk of dust and gas that is slightly tilted to the plane of the outer disk. The shadow can only be clearly seen because the system is tilted fac

Ithica CA (SPX) May 05, 2023
A "beautiful effect" predicted by quantum electrodynamics (QED) can explain the puzzling first observations of polarized X-rays emitted by a magnetar - a neutron star featuring a powerful magnetic field, according to a Cornell astrophysicist. The extremely dense and hot remnant of a massive star, boasting a magnetic field 100 trillion times stronger than Earth's, was expected to generate h