Category Physics

In a year defined by obstacles, a University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign student rocket team persevered. Working together across five time zones, they successfully designed a hybrid rocket engine that uses paraffin and a novel nitrous oxide-oxygen mixture called Nytrox. The team has its sights set on launching a rocket with the new engine at the 2021 Intercollegiate Rocketry and Engineering Competition.

“Hybrid propulsion powers Virgin Galactic’...

Plagues of locusts, containing millions of insects, fly across the sky to attack crops, but the individual insects do not collide with each other within these massive swarms. Now a team of engineers is creating a low-power collision detector that mimics the locust avoidance response and could help robots, drones and even self-driving cars avoid collisions.

“We are always looking for animals with unusual abilities, ones that do something better than humans,” said Saptarshi Das, assistant professor of engineering science and mechanics...

Researchers have developed a standalone device that converts sunlight, carbon dioxide and water into a carbon-neutral fuel, without requiring any additional components or electricity.

The device, developed by a team from the University of Cambridge, is a significant step toward achieving artificial photosynthesis—a process mimicking the a...

Scientists from NUST MISIS have presented an innovative autonomous power source: a compact atomic battery that can last up to 20 years. Due to the original 3D structure of the beta-voltaic element, its dimensions have decreased by 3x.

The original device uses the microchannel 3D structure of a nickel beta-voltaic element. Its peculiarity is that the radioactive element is applied on both sides of the planar p-n junction, which simplifies the cell manufacturing technology, as well as the control of the reverse current that steals the battery power. The special microchannel structure provides an increase in the effective conversion area of the beta radiation by 14 times, which results in an overall increase of current.

“The output electr...