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    Engineers’ ‘Nanocardboard’ Flyers could serve as Martian Atmospheric Probes

    April 24, 2020, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Despite weighing about a third of a milligram, Penn Engineers are now testing their “nanocardboard flyers” ability to lift payloads. In this artist’s conception, fleets of flyers could be launched from ground-based rovers and steered with lasers to collect samples. Planets and moons with thin atmospheres and low gravities would enhance these flyers’ ability to levitate by shooting air through their corrugated channels.

    Engineers are suggesting a new way to explore the sky: tiny aircraft that weigh about as much as a fruit fly and have no moving parts. These flyers are plates of ‘nanocardboard,’ which levitate when bright light is shone on them...

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