fuel

Here’s What You Need to Know About Power Cuts at Two Ukrainian Nuclear Plants

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The catastrophic disaster at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in 1986 was caused by an explosion at the Reactor 4 Unit. This expelled a sizeable quantity of radioactive material into the surroundings, alongside a partial meltdown of the reactor core. The last few decades have seen substantial international efforts to safely contain and decontaminate the … Read more

Chocolate, music and research fuel Martian life at HI-SEAS – Commander’s report: sol 6

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Dr. Michaela Musilova is the director of the Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation (HI-SEAS) program, which conducts analog missions to the moon and Mars for scientific research at a habitat on the volcano Mauna Loa. Currently, she is in command of the two-week Valoria 3 Martian mission and contributed this report to Space.com’s Expert … Read more

Newly Invented Catalyst Dramatically Increases The Efficiency of Turning CO2 Into Fuel

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It took nature decades of photosynthesis, followed by eons of intense heat and pressure from geological activity to bake atmospheric carbon dioxide into the long chains of hydrocarbon that make up fossil fuels.   We don’t have the luxury of millions of years to mop up the excess carbon from our atmosphere, but advances in … Read more

Record-Breaking Nuclear Fusion Experiment Achieves Historic Plasma Milestone

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The secret behind a record-breaking nuclear fusion experiment that spit out 10 quadrillion watts of power in a split second has been revealed: a “self-heating” – or “burning” – plasma of neutron-heavy hydrogen inside the fuel capsule used in the experiment, according to researchers.   Last year, scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in … Read more

Astronomers Have Identified a New Kind of Supernova We Never Knew Existed

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We often think of supernova explosions as inevitable for large stars. Big star runs out of fuel, gravity collapses its core, and BOOM! But astronomers have long thought at least one type of large star didn’t end with a supernova. Known as Wolf-Rayet stars, they were thought to end with a quiet collapse of their core … Read more

James Webb Space Telescope should have fuel for about 20 years of science

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As the James Webb Space Telescope heads towards its distant destination from Earth, good news flowed from deep space: it has plenty of fuel left. Scientists delivered the news during a press conference Saturday (Jan. 8) held to mark the historic mirror deployment in space, as Webb executed the most complicated deployment of its lifetime … Read more

‘Don’t Look Up’ Illustrates 5 Myths that Fuel Rejection of Science

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The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research. Every disaster movie seems to open with a scientist being ignored. “Don’t Look Up” is no exception—in fact, people ignoring or flat out denying scientific evidence is the point. Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence play astronomers who make a literally … Read more

James Webb Space Telescope should have fuel for way more than 10 years of science

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NASA’s newest flagship space observatory should have enough fuel to more than double its minimum mission life peering into the history of the universe, according to an agency update. The long-awaited James Webb Space Telescope, a collaboration with the Canadian and European space agencies led by NASA, launched into space Saturday (Dec. 25) on an … Read more