Cooling things down in space is trickier than it might sound. But that is exactly the process the James Webb telescope is going through right now. Getting down to cryogenic temperature is imperative for its infrared imaging systems to work correctly. While the telescope has already started, it will be another few weeks before the process is complete and it's ready to start capturing its first groundbreaking infrared images of the universe.

That might seem like an exceptionally long time to cool something down, but it's all part of the difficulty of doing so in space. The first tricky point is getting out of the sun, which can heat equipment up to blistering temperatures if it is exposed to direct sunlight. Luckily, James Webb has a specially designed sun shield to keep it out of direct sunlight.

The rest of the telescope's instruments have been cooling since the sunshield was deployed several weeks ago.

It's probably no surprise that keeping healthy in space is incredibly important. And without the typical resources found on Earth, creative solutions have to be explored.

Right now, some excited Year 10 and 11 students from around Victoria are waiting with anticipation as their space-made yogurt—fresh off the International Space Station (ISS)—heads back to Australia from NASA facilities in the United States.

The students worked with researchers at the Swinburne University of Technology to design an experiment investigating the nutritional values of space-made yogurt. The results could provide insight into how to best help astronauts with vital nutrition during long-haul spaceflight.

The human gut

A critical factor in human health is the overall health of our gut microbiome, which is estimated to host more than 100 trillion bacteria.

Maintaining the health and diversity of these bacteria might be even more important in space than on Earth. In 2019, NASA released groundbreaking results from a year-long study on astronaut twins Mark and Scott Kelly.

In 2016, Scott spent 365 days on the ISS, experiencing reduced gravity, while Mark remained on Earth.

Concrete is not the first material one usually thinks of when exploring space. Nor is it the focus of much cutting-edge research. The most common building material has been used by humanity for thousands of years. But surprisingly, little is still known about some of its properties, due in no small part to the limitations of the environments it can be tested in. Now, this most ubiquitous of materials will be tested in a new environment—the microgravity aboard the International Space Station.

The experiment, part of the "Cosmic Kiss" mission, will have German astronaut Matthias Maurer hand-mixing concrete in microgravity using a specially designed mixer no larger than the size of his hand and a giant inflatable bag. That obviously will not lead to much concrete, but its properties will be particularly telling to scientists.