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Category: energy

Simulated moon soil and recyclable thermoplastics could help build future space infrastructure

Transporting material from Earth to the moon is an expensive proposition: By some estimates, moving a single kilogram (2.2 pounds) can cost more than $1 million. Any plan to build a permanent human habitat up there will depend on bringing that sky-high cost down.

Engineers and planners have long eyed lunar regolith —the small, sharp rocky shards and dust that cover the moon’s surface—as an invaluable and abundant printing ingredient. Now, a Concordia study shows how combining regolith with recycled high-performance plastic could be used to 3D print components onsite for future lunar missions.

The researchers created a composite using lunar regolith simulant and a recycled, high-performance thermoplastic known as poly(ether ketone ketone), or PEKK. They then used the composite to successfully 3D print components designed to absorb energy and deform under load rather than serve as permanent structural components. These structures, known as sacrificial structures, were used to measure how well the composite could withstand stresses similar to those the landing mechanism of a lunar module would have to absorb on impact.

Astronomers discover the lowest-mass double neutron star system to date

Neutron stars, the extremely dense remains of massive stars that exploded at the end of their lives, are widely studied astrophysical objects. Some of these stars, known as pulsars, spin and send out beams of radio waves, making them appear to pulse as the beams sweep past Earth.

According to Einstein’s theory of general relativity, orbiting neutron stars should emit ripples in spacetime known as gravitational waves. The resulting loss of energy should gradually draw pairs of neutron stars closer together, shortening the time they take to complete each orbit.

Researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the State Key Laboratory of Radio Astronomy and Technology in Beijing and other academic institutions in China set out to test this prediction by studying PSR J1856–0039, a double neutron star (DNS) system discovered using the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST) in China.

A Few Picoseconds Reveal Superconductivity’s Hidden Breaking Point

Ultrafast current pulses let scientists push superconductors beyond their usual experimental limits before vortices and heat could interfere.

The method revealed striking differences in how two superconducting materials break down and could expose quantum behavior that conventional measurements miss.

Superconductivity is one of the most remarkable behaviors found in quantum materials. When some materials are cooled below a specific transition temperature, their electrical resistance disappears, allowing current to move through them without losing energy as heat.

Physicists Find a Superconductor That ‘Breaks’ The Symmetry of Time — A First For Its Kind

Under certain conditions – such as bone-brittling temperatures lower than that of deep space – superconductors can conduct electricity without resistance and resultant energy loss.

Though they vary in their chemical composition, operational temperature ranges, and magnetic properties, superconductors come in two groupings.

First, conventional and unconventional superconductors differ in how their electrons become entangled in tandems called Cooper pairs, an identity-sharing state that allows them to gracefully glide through the atomic jumble of their materials to facilitate uninterrupted electric flow.

Magnetic order survives weak quantum fluctuations in gapless magnets

In a new study published in Physical Review Letters, researchers have shown that magnetic order can survive weak quantum fluctuations in disordered magnets that lack an energy gap. The work establishes robust ferromagnetism in the two-dimensional random-bond quantum Ising model, confirming a longstanding conjecture in quantum statistical mechanics.

Many magnets owe their order to spontaneous symmetry breaking (SSB). Physicists have long sought to prove that this order is stable against perturbations such as quantum fluctuations. Existing proofs, however, typically require the system to have an energy gap. Disordered magnets such as the random-bond Ising model are gapless, placing them outside the reach of these proofs.

The researchers developed a proof technique that does not rely on an energy gap. They adapted an argument from statistical mechanics, known as the Peierls argument, to quantum systems.

How to balance quantum batteries’ high power with stable energy delivery

Quantum batteries are an emerging area of research, with progress coming from theoretical studies and proof-of-principle experiments in small quantum systems. Unlike conventional chemical batteries used in everyday life, they use quantum systems to store and transfer energy. Researchers are exploring them as potential future energy sources for quantum processors and other quantum technologies.

Previous research has focused mainly on how fast and powerfully quantum batteries can be charged. In new research, the researchers establish fundamental limits on fluctuations in both the energy delivered by a quantum battery and the rate at which it is delivered.

The work, “Fundamental Limitations on the Reliabilities of Power and Work in Quantum Batteries,” was published in PRX Quantum.

Pressurized wind tunnel experiments could help wind farms generate more power

The world needs more wind energy. But anyone designing new wind turbines or trying to squeeze more power out of existing ones faces a stiff challenge when testing new approaches. That’s because the atmosphere is a tough place for a controlled experiment.

Some researchers use wind tunnels to conduct tests, but tests of scaled-down wind turbines in traditional wind tunnels can differ widely from field conditions. (Wind turbines are the largest rotating machines ever made.) The problem hampers not only the development of better wind turbines but also our understanding of basic questions like how much power to expect from a turbine when winds change direction.

In a new open-access paper published in PNAS Nexus, researchers closed the gap between experiments in the field and the lab by using a highly pressurized wind tunnel to simulate the flow physics of the atmosphere. With this approach, the researchers determined how the turbine’s alignment and its tip speed relative to the wind influence the power it generates, offering new insights into how to get more power from existing wind farms.

MANA reveals atomic-scale rails for guiding superconducting vortices

Researchers at the Research Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics (MANA), one of the centers under the National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS), Japan, discovered that atomic-scale steps can guide superconducting vortices in an ultrathin superconductor. Vortices moved more than 1,000 times more easily along the steps than across them, and this guiding effect could be tuned by temperature and magnetic field.

Superconducting vortices are tiny quantum objects whose movement can strongly influence how superconductors behave. Controlling their direction of motion could therefore be important for developing ultralow-power superconducting technologies. However, directional control of vortices in two-dimensional superconductors has remained challenging. Achieving such control could help develop future superconducting devices that consume less power while improving processing efficiency.

Addressing this challenge, a research team led by Takashi Uchihashi from Research Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics (MANA), National Institute for Materials Science, Japan, investigated an ultrathin superconductor with regularly arranged atomic steps on its surface. Scanning tunneling microscopy confirmed the parallel steps and directly visualized vortices located along them. Their findings were published in the journal Physical Review B on July 30, 2026.

Whirlpool in a water tank reveals long-predicted wave turbulence

When water drains from a bathtub, a whirlpool often forms above the drain, and its narrow core can start to wobble and twist. For almost 150 years, physicists have predicted that these wobbles can become turbulent, passing energy from large ripples down to ever smaller ones. Until now, however, this “Kelvin-wave turbulence” had never been seen directly in an experiment.

In new research published in Physical Review Letters, a team led by Eric Falcon at Université Paris Cité has observed the effect using a carefully controlled whirlpool in a tank of water.

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