A Rocket Lab Electron launched the first satellites for a new constellation being developed by Open Cosmos that will use spectrum previously assigned to Rivada Space Networks.
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TAHOE CITY, Calif. — L3Harris Technologies will provide the primary imagery for the Korean Meteorological Administration’s (KMA) next-generation geostationary weather satellite. The contract, awarded to L3Harris by Korean aerospace manufacturer […]
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This episode of the Physics World Weekly podcast features a conversation with the plasma physicist Debbie Callahan who is chief strategy officer at Focused Energy – a California and Germany based fusion-energy startup. Prior to that she spent 35 years working at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the US.
Focused Energy is developing a commercial system for generating energy from the laser-driven fusion of hydrogen isotopes. Callahan describes LightHouse, which is the company’s design for a laser-fusion power plant, and Pearl, which is the firm’s deuterium–tritium fuel capsule.
Callahan talks about the challenges and rewards of working in the fusion industry and also calls on early-career physicists to consider careers in this burgeoning sector.
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Heavy-duty vehicles (HDVs) powered by hydrogen-based proton-exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells offer a cleaner alternative to diesel-powered internal combustion engines for decarbonizing long-haul transportation sectors. The development path of sub-components for HDV fuel-cell applications is guided by the total cost of ownership (TCO) analysis of the truck.
TCO analysis suggests that the cost of the hydrogen fuel consumed over the lifetime of the HDV is more dominant because trucks typically operate over very high mileages (~a million miles) than the fuel cell stack capital expense (CapEx). Commercial HDV applications consume more hydrogen and demand higher durability, meaning that TCO is largely related to the fuel-cell efficiency and durability of catalysts.
This article is written to bridge the gap between the industrial requirements and academic activity for advanced cathode catalysts with an emphasis on durability. From a materials perspective, the underlying nature of the carbon support, Pt-alloy crystal structure, stability of the alloying element, cathode ionomer volume fraction, and catalyst–ionomer interface play a critical role in improving performance and durability.
We provide our perspective on four major approaches, namely, mesoporous carbon supports, ordered PtCo intermetallic alloys, thrifting ionomer volume fraction, and shell-protection strategies that are currently being pursued. While each approach has its merits and demerits, their key developmental needs for future are highlighted.
Nagappan Ramaswamy joined the Department of Chemical Engineering at IIT Bombay as a faculty member in January 2025. He earned his PhD in 2011 from Northeastern University, Boston specialising in fuel cell electrocatalysis.
He then spent 13 years working in industrial R&D – two years at Nissan North American in Michigan USA focusing on lithium-ion batteries, followed by 11 years at General Motors in Michigan USA focusing on low-temperature fuel cells and electrolyser technologies. While at GM, he led two multi-million-dollar research projects funded by the US Department of Energy focused on the development of proton-exchange membrane fuel cells for automotive applications.
At IIT Bombay, his primary research interests include low-temperature electrochemical energy-conversion and storage devices such as fuel cells, electrolysers and redox-flow batteries involving materials development, stack design and diagnostics.
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SAN FRANCISCO – Weather intelligence startup Tomorrow.io unveiled DeepSky, a satellite constellation designed to refine atmospheric forecasts by gathering the vast quantities of data needed to feed artificial intelligence models. […]
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A tank built for Rocket Lab’s Neutron rocket was damaged during qualification testing, threatening to further delay the vehicle’s first flight.
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Much of my time is spent trying to build and refine models in quantum optics, usually with just a pencil, paper and a computer. This requires an ability to sit with difficult concepts for a long time, sometimes far longer than is comfortable, until they finally reveal their structure.
Good communication is equally essential – I teach students; collaborate with colleagues from different subfields; and translate complex ideas into accessible language for the broader public. Modern physics connects with many different fields, so being flexible and open-minded matters as much as knowing the technical details. Above all, curiosity drives everything. When I don’t understand something, that uncertainty becomes my strongest motivation to keep going.
What I like the best is the sense of discovery – the moment when a problem that has evaded understanding for weeks suddenly becomes clear. Those flashes of insight feel like hearing the quiet whisper of nature itself. They are rare, but they bring along a joy that is hard to find elsewhere.
I also value the opportunity to guide the next generation of physicists, whether in the university classroom or through public science communication. Teaching brings a different kind of fulfilment: witnessing students develop confidence, curiosity and a genuine love for physics.
What I like the least is the inherent uncertainty of research. Questions do not promise favourable answers, and progress is rarely linear. Fortunately, I have come to see this lack of balance not as a weakness but as a source of power that forces growth, new perspectives, and ultimately deeper understanding.
I wish I had known that feeling lost is not a sign of inadequacy but a natural part of doing physics at a high level. Not understanding something can be the greatest motivator, provided one is willing to invest time and effort. Passion and curiosity matter far more than innate brilliance. If I had realized earlier that steady dedication can carry you farther than talent alone, I would have embraced uncertainty with much more confidence.
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SAN FRANCISCO – Italy’s Azimut Group invested $128 million in italian space logistics specialist D-Orbit, directly and by buying out an existing investor. The investment — $53 million in new funding and a $75 million buyout of an existing D-Orbit investor — is the first tranche of investment in D-Orbit’s Series D round. D-Orbit raised […]
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“God does not play dice.”
With this famous remark at the 1927 Solvay Conference, Albert Einstein set the tone for one of physics’ most enduring debates. At the heart of his dispute with Niels Bohr lay a question that continues to shape the foundations of physics: does the apparently probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics reflect something fundamental, or is it simply due to lack of information about some “hidden variables” of the system that we cannot access?
Physicists at University College London, UK (UCL) have now addressed this question via the concept of quantum state diffusion (QSD). In QSD, the wavefunction does not collapse abruptly. Instead, wavefunction collapse is modelled as a continuous interaction with the environment that causes the system to evolve gradually toward a definite state, restoring some degree of intuition to the counterintuitive quantum world.
To appreciate the distinction (and the advantages it might bring), imagine tossing a coin. While the coin is spinning in midair, it is neither fully heads nor fully tails – its state represents a blend of both possibilities. This mirrors a quantum system in superposition.
When the coin eventually lands, the uncertainty disappears and we obtain a definite outcome. In quantum terms, this corresponds to wavefunction collapse: the superposition resolves into a single state upon measurement.
In the standard interpretation of quantum mechanics, wavefunction collapse is considered instantaneous. However, this abrupt transition is challenging from a thermodynamic perspective because uncertainty is closely tied to entropy. Before measurement, a system in superposition carries maximal uncertainty, and thus maximum entropy. After collapse, the outcome is definite and our uncertainty about the system is reduced, thereby reducing the entropy.
This apparent reduction in entropy immediately raises a deeper question. If the system suddenly becomes more ordered at the moment of measurement, where does the “missing” entropy go?
Returning to the coin analogy, imagine that instead of landing cleanly and instantly revealing heads or tails, the coin wobbles, leans, slows and gradually settles onto one face. The outcome is the same, but the transition is continuous rather than abrupt.
This gradual settling captures the essence of QSD. Instead of an instantaneous “collapse”, the quantum state unfolds continuously over time. This makes it possible to track various parameters of thermodynamic change, including a quantity called environmental stochastic entropy production that measures how irreversible the process is.
Another benefit is that whereas standard projective measurements describe an abrupt “yes/no” outcome, QSD models a broader class of generalized or “weak” measurements, revealing the subtle ways quantum systems evolve. It also allows physicists to follow individual trajectories rather than just average outcomes, uncovering details that the standard framework smooths over.
“The QSD framework helps us understand how unpredictable environmental influences affect quantum systems,” explains Sophia Walls, a PhD student at UCL and the first author of a paper in Physical Review A on the research. Environmental noise, Walls adds, is particularly important for quantum technologies, making the study’s insights valuable for quantum error correction, control protocols and feedback mechanisms.
At first glance, QSD might seem to resemble decoherence, which also arises from system–environment interactions such as noise. But the two differ in scope. “Decoherence explains how a system becomes a classical mixed state,” Walls clarifies, “but not how it ultimately purifies into a single eigenstate.” QSD, with its stochastic term, describes this final purification – the point where the coin’s faint shimmer sharpens into heads or tails.
In this view, measurement is not a single act but a continuous, entropy-producing flow of information between system and environment – a process that gradually results in manifestation of one of the possible quantum states, rather than an abrupt “collapse”.
“Standard quantum mechanics separates two kinds of dynamics – the deterministic Schrödinger evolution and the probabilistic, instantaneous collapse,” Walls notes. “QSD connects both in a single dynamical equation, offering a more unified description of measurement.”
This continuous evolution makes otherwise intractable quantities, such as entropy production, measurable and meaningful. It also breathes life into the wavefunction itself. By simulating individual realizations, QSD distinguishes between two seemingly identical mixed states: one genuinely entangled with its environment, and another that simply represents our ignorance. Only in the first case does the system dynamically evolve – a distinction invisible in the orthodox picture.
Could this diffusion-based framework also illuminate other fundamental questions beyond the nature of measurement? Walls thinks it’s possible. Recent work suggests that stochastic processes could provide experimental clues about how gravity behaves at the quantum scale. QSD may one day offer a way to formalize or test such ideas. “If the nature of quantum gravity can be studied through a diffusive or stochastic process, then QSD would be a relevant framework to explore it,” Walls says.
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Blue Origin aims to start deploying more than 5,400 satellites from late next year for its own Starlink broadband competitor, targeting up to 6 Tbps capacity for enterprise, data center and government customers.
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