Category: 7. Science

Designed to operate as a floating laboratory, Future has an LOA of 110.8 metres, a displacement of 7,000 tons at full load, and space for 80 personnel. An all-electric propulsion system that includes two propellers and rudders delivers a maximum speed of more than 15 knots and a range of 10,000 nautical miles or, alternatively, an endurance of 60 days.

The vessel also boasts a DP2 system, a stern A-frame, and anti-roll fins for enhanced stability in offshore waters.

Following delivery, Future will be used to conduct verification tests of intelligent systems.

This SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule was photographed last year during the private Polaris Dawn mission. Credit: SpaceX

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AIAA ASCEND, Las Vegas — Lives will almost certainly be lost in Earth orbit and cislunar space unless space agencies and commercial spaceflight operators jointly develop a rescue capability for astronauts or spaceflight participants in stricken spacecraft. That is the stark message that space safety researchers led by Grant Cates from the Aerospace Corp. plan to deliver this afternoon during a technical presentation here.

The bottom line: the ongoing “acceleration in human spaceflight activity” is not being matched by growth in strategies to rescue astronauts, the paper reads.

A large part of the issue, Cates told me in an interview in advance of his presentation, is the risk that developers of crewed spacecraft and the coming class of commercial space stations might continue to choose different types of docking adapters, rendering rescue operations difficult if not impossible because the craft won’t be able to dock with one another.

Compounding the challenge is that many spacecraft still use dissimilar spacesuits, and the umbilicals on spacesuits from one crewed spacecraft won’t plug into the life support and communications services of another. This was most recently illustrated by the extended stay of NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams aboard the International Space Station. Once their Boeing Starliner capsule had departed from ISS, the astronauts had to wait for NASA to send up extra spacesuits compatible with their new return vehicle, a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule.

Cates pointed to something that occurred early on in Starliner’s crewed flight test as an example of a worst-case scenario: While en route to ISS, a handful of Starliner’s thrusters malfunctioned, complicating the docking process.

“As it turned out, they were able to successfully dock [manually] and Starliner returned [uncrewed] autonomously” months later without incident, Cates said. “But I don’t want to lose sight of the fact that future missions may not be as fortunate as Starliner was.”

And then there’s the fact that in the event of an emergency, a rescue spacecraft might not be able to be launched in time. Unlike in the space shuttle days, spaceflight operators do not typically have a spare rocket and capsule on the launchpad ready to go at a moment’s notice if a crew on orbit runs into trouble.

It could all add up to tragedy, said Parker Wishik, Cates’ Aerospace Corp. colleague and co-author. “There are more humans in space than ever before, going up more frequently than ever before, and with a burgeoning space tourism sector, it’s almost a statistical certainty that at some point astronauts are going to encounter a life-threatening crisis in space.”

The authors are not alone in their call-to-action: In October, former NASA administrators Charles Bolden, Jim Bridenstine and Sean O’Keefe published a commentary in the Orlando Sentinel, warning that “we are not fully prepared for the worst possible scenario: humans stranded in space with no hope of rescue.” They called for NASA to “lay the foundations” for “realistic and sensible” in-space search-and-rescue techniques with its global Artemis Accords partners, and then work with the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space to encourage spacefaring nations beyond the Artemis Accords into a cooperative in-space rescue ethos.

So to combat this “rescue gap,” Cates, alongside Wishik and RAND Corp. senior safety engineer Jan Osburg, wrote what they describe as a “technical blueprint” meant to help guide space agencies and commercial operators through the various criteria that must be considered when drawing up plans for an in-space rescue.

This blueprint comprises a three-point concept of operations. First, mission operators should provide whoever is in charge of coordinating a notional rescue — NASA or a commercial entity, for instance — all the germane data well before the launch. Among the required information: a comprehensive description of the spacecraft’s orbital parameters; its mission duration; the number of astronauts aboard; how long life support can last if reentry is not possible; the type of docking system it uses and which other spacecraft are compatible with it.

The second part of the blueprint addresses pre-launch planning on behalf of a designated in-space rescue mission coordinator, who would draw on resources from a number of “space capability providers.” The coordinator’s responsibilities would be to clarify:

• Which rocket, spacecraft and crew will perform the rescue;
• How best to prepare the rocket, spacecraft, crew and a rescue command center for launch after an emergency is called;
• How soon the rescue mission can be launched;
• The mission profile — the time from launch to rendezvous, docking and rescue of astronauts;
• The rescue spacecraft’s EVA [spacewalk] capabilities, including the number of spacesuits needed;
• How to ensure adequate seating for both rescue crew and the rescued;
• What recovery forces are required upon landing.

Cates emphasized that operators should not fear the expense of such endeavors, as many of the proposed measures are meant to be relatively low-cost — for example, rescheduling launch dates so that a backup rocket is always available on the pad to launch a rescue spacecraft.

“The point is not to create additional burden and cost,” he said. “It is to leverage what we already have, which is exactly what NASA did during the Skylab program, and after [the space shuttle] Columbia was lost, when they decided to simply use the next vehicle scheduled for launch and repurpose it for rescue mission standby.”

How that rescue launch scheduling would happen is the subject of the third part of the blueprint, in which the authors propose harnessing the lessons of “tactically responsive” launch exercises, like the one undertaken by the U.S. Space Force in 2023. Called VICTUS NOX, the mission’s aim was to orbit a Millenium Space Systems smallsat — taken randomly off a production line and modified for a national security space task — on a Firefly rocket with just 24 hours’ notice. The catch? Neither provider was told when the starting gun would be fired.

The Space Force and its industry participants managed to get the satellite on orbit and working in 27 hours on the first try, a result that impresses Cates.

“It’s the exact same concept of operations, it’s just we’re doing it for rescue,” he said.

But why launch a rescue mission from Earth rather than, say, a space station already in orbit? That’s one aspect of the blueprint that concerns Brand Griffin, a space systems architect at Genesis Engineering Solutions of Maryland and the program manager for the Single Person Spacecraft. Genesis is designing this crewed, spacesuit-free EVA pod to dock with the future class of commercial space stations.

“I would have preferred to see a trade-off analysis showing why this ground-based rescue blueprint is the favored option for astronaut crew rescue,” Griffin told me by email. Providing rescue in LEO means the blueprint has limited application: “Ground-based systems are not a credible solution for Moon or Mars crew rescue,” he wrote.

In Cates’ view, “A ground-based capability has more flexibility in terms of getting to wider ranges of inclinations and altitudes,” but he added that “this paper is not the end of the line on space rescue; it is a step forward.”

He also agreed with Griffin that “a risk trade-off analysis can and should be done for future situations.”

Among the factors that mission planners should consider, Griffin said, are any possible risks to the crew and stranded astronauts that the rescue poses. For instance, should the rescue plan entail a spacewalk, that “drives requirements at the rescue site and for the rescue vehicle. These include the sizing of suits, in particular gloves, to fit everyone, and a minimum of 2.5 hours pre-breathing pure oxygen to prevent the bends.”

And if those being rescued have not walked in space before, it could be a problem: “Weightless EVA is not intuitive” Griffin noted. “Designated ISS EVA astronauts have over 200 hours of neutral buoyancy tank training before their first EVA.”

China, India, and Japan are not the only countries on the Asian continent looking to establish themselves in the fledgling space economy. South Korea also wants to be in the space race, and even plans for a presence beyond Earth’s orbit, with ambitions to create its own lunar base within 20 years.

At a public meeting held at the National Research Foundation of Korea on July 17, the South Korean AeroSpace Administration (KASA) released a roadmap proposing “five core missions, including low-Earth orbit and microgravity exploration, lunar exploration, and solar and space science missions,” The Korean Times has reported.

KASA had already proposed placing a robotic lander on the lunar surface by 2032, but the new master plan is much more ambitious, including the development of a new lunar lander by 2040, as well as the construction of a lunar economic base by 2045.

The Republic of Korea is not starting from scratch in the field of lunar exploration. In mid-2022, the country launched Danuri, its first lunar probe, aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Danuri reached lunar orbit later that year and is still in operation, studying the moon’s natural resources with its suite of instruments. It is also intended to test space technology that will be used by KASA on future missions.

This mission was part of the first phase of the Korean Lunar Exploration Program. Phase two includes the launch in 2032 of the aforementioned robotic module, as well as another lunar orbiter and a rover weighing 20 kilograms. This second phase will no longer rely on a SpaceX rocket or even a pad on US soil; rather, the mission will be launched using the country’s KSLV-III rocket, which is still under development, from the Naro Space Center, located on the Republic of Korea’s southern coast.

The Korea Institute of Geosciences and Mineral Resources is assisting with preparations by deploying prototype lunar rovers in abandoned coal mines to evaluate technologies that could be used in upcoming space mining tasks.

My KASA Is Your NASA

KASA was created only recently, in May 2024, by the South Korean government, as a domestic version of NASA. It now oversees the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI), which has handled development of the country’s aerospace technologies since its establishment in 1989. Both KARI and the republic’s national space research organization, the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute, are now sub-agencies of KASA. With its new special agency and the backing of the private sector, South Korea is seeking to position itself among the top five countries in the field of space exploration.

KASA also envisions landing a module on Mars in 2045, as well as the development of probes to monitor solar activity and improve space security, including, by 2035, the deployment of a solar observation satellite at the L4 Lagrange point (a stable position in space where small objects are held in place by the gravitational forces of the sun and Earth).

South Korea, of course, is not the only country looking to build a lunar base by the middle of this century or to develop space economy infrastructure. Through the Artemis program, NASA intends to establish a lunar base within the next decade—if political conflicts do not derail that project.

China, in collaboration with Russia and other countries, has also set a goal of building a lunar base by 2045. India also has its sights set on the moon, with plans for its own base on the surface by 2047.

This story originally appeared on WIRED en Español and has been translated from Spanish.

Red supergiant star Betelgeuse has a new excuse for its bad behavior: an accomplice.

The star, pronounced “Beetlejuice” (just like the Michael Keaton character), sits like a little devil on the shoulder of the Orion constellation about 700 light-years away in space. It has long-perplexed scientists, with some convinced it was on the brink of a supernova.

More recently, astronomers have proposed a theory for its volatile nature, which explains the star’s seemingly erratic changes in brightness. They’ve suggested an unseen companion star orbiting Betelgeuse is periodically clearing dust out of the giant star’s way to reveal more of its starlight. 

Now a NASA-led team of scientists has made a direct detection of a companion. Using the 8.1-meter Gemini North telescope in Hawaii, the team found a faint star beside the supergiant’s brilliant glare — in the exact location previously predicted by computer simulations. The new evidence is a technological feat that some believed impossible due to its proximity to the luminous giant. 

In the past, researchers have referred to the hypothetical companion star as Alpha Ori b or “Betelbuddy.” But this team has proposed its own name (and, shockingly, didn’t take the 2024 recommendation of this reporter, “Otho”). 

“The name Betelgeuse means ‘Hand of the Giant,’ with ‘Elgeuse’ being a historical Arabic name of the Orion constellation and a feminine name in old Arabian legend,” the authors wrote in their paper, which will be published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters on Thursday. “Given that α Ori B orbits the hand of the giant, we suggest that the companion star be named Siwarha, or ‘Her Bracelet.’”

Mashable Light Speed

Betelgeuse is about 100,000 times brighter than the sun. Because it’s in the twilight of its life, the variable star has puffed up. Scientists say it’s so large — hundreds of millions of miles in diameter — that if it were swapped with the sun, it would reach Jupiter in the outer solar system. By comparison, the sun is about 865,000 miles across. 

Beginning in 2019, there was a dramatic decrease in Betelgeuse’s brightness — an event referred to as the “Great Dimming.” Some believed this was a sign that stellar death was imminent, but scientists were able to determine the fading was the result of a large dust cloud temporarily blocking light from the star. About a year later, the star returned to its previous brightness. 

But that event led to renewed interest in Betelgeuse, with some astronomers seeking answers to why Betelgeuse has two pulses — one that “beats” about every year and another on a six-year cycle. Some theorized the less-frequent pulse could be caused by another star. 

A team of astrophysicists, headed by NASA Ames Research Center’s Steve Howell, observed Betelgeuse in late 2024, when the hypothesized companion star was predicted to be at its maximum distance from its sibling. That’s when they saw a faint light — located about four times the Earth-sun distance from Betelgeuse but still well within the supergiant’s outer atmosphere. 

The team ruled out the possibility that the new detection was just a background or foreground star. Betelgeuse’s motion through space would have revealed such interlopers in earlier images — but no such object was visible in observations about four years earlier.

The companion star is much fainter than Betelgeuse, perhaps just 1.5 times heavier than the sun. It appears to be a hot, blue-white star that has not yet started burning hydrogen in its core, according to the team’s findings. But it’s ill-fated, the researchers say. In about 10,000 years, it’ll likely spiral into its supergiant sibling. At that point, in the words of Beetlejuice, it’ll be “dead, dead, deadski.”

Astronomers now hope to catch the smaller companion again when it reaches its next greatest separation from Betelgeuse in late 2027. Further studies could shed light on why similar red supergiant stars may undergo periodic changes in their brightness over many years. 

“This detection was at the very extremes of what can be accomplished with Gemini in terms of high-angular resolution imaging, and it worked,” Howell said in a statement. “This now opens the door for other observational pursuits of a similar nature.”

Jupiter’s moon Europa has been a subject of deep study for scientists, which has led to several observations over decades. A study that was carried out recently revealed many fresh observations about the hidden chemistry of the icy moon’s interior, which challenge the long-held beliefs of scientists.

According to the latest observations made by the James Webb Space Telescope, it was revealed that Europa’s frozen surface is a dynamic world that’s far from frozen in time. The findings came as a surprise to scientists who had pictured Europa’s frozen surface as a still and silent shell for decades.

“We think that the surface is fairly porous and warm enough in some areas to allow the ice to recrystallize rapidly,” Richard Cartwright, a spectroscopist at Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory and lead author of the new study, said in a statement, according to Space.com.
What’s even more intriguing is what this surface activity tells us about Europa’s subsurface ocean. The geologic activity and constant exchange between the surface and the subsurface make “chaos terrains.” These are areas where ice blocks have broken apart, moved, and refrozen. These regions are especially valuable because they might offer direct access to what’s happening inside Europa’s interior.

The latest study focused on two regions in Europa’s southern hemisphere: Tara Regio and Powys Regio. Tara Regio stands out as one of the moon’s most intriguing areas. According to observations from the JWST, crystalline ice exists both on Europa’s surface and deeper below, challenging previous assumptions about how ice is distributed there.

Scientists can have access to valuable insights pertaining to Europa’s chemistry as well as its potential for habitability, they explained in the paper, by measuring the spectral properties of these “chaos” regions using remotely sensed data. The paper was published on May 28, 2025, in The Planetary Science Journal.”Our data showed strong indications that what we are seeing must be sourced from the interior, perhaps from a subsurface ocean nearly 20 miles (30 kilometers) beneath Europa’s thick icy shell,” Ujjwal Raut, program manager at the Southwest Research Institute and co-author of the study, said in the statement, Space.com reported.

What is the hidden chemistry

To understand how water freezes on Europa, Ujjwal Raut and his team carried out laboratory experiments. The surface is constantly bombarded on Europa by charged particles from space.

The ice structure on Europa is disrupted by the intense radiation, which is not the case on Earth, where ice naturally forms a hexagonal crystal structure. The radiation on Europa causes the ice to become what’s known as amorphous ice. It is a disordered, noncrystalline form.

Why experiments mattered

The experiments were crucial, as they played a key role in demonstrating how the ice changes over time. By studying the manner in which ice transforms between different states, scientists can learn more about the moon’s surface dynamics. The observations through the experiments, combined with fresh data from JWST, add to a set of findings showing that a vast, hidden liquid ocean lies beneath Europa’s icy shell.

“In this same region […] we see a lot of other unusual things, including the best evidence for sodium chloride, like table salt, probably originating from its interior ocean,” Cartwright said. “We also see some of the strongest evidence for CO2 and hydrogen peroxide on Europa. The chemistry in this location is really strange and exciting,” he added.

These regions, marked by fractured surface features, may point to geologic activity pushing material up from beneath Europa’s icy shell.

There’s a total lunar eclipse visible on September 7, 2025, and if you’re based in India, China, Russia, western Australia, east Africa and the regions surrounding central Asia, you’ll get to see the whole thing.

This lunar eclipse isn’t visible in North America, although the very western part of Alaska may be able to see a partial lunar eclipse.

For those of us in the UK and western Europe, we may be able to catch a bit of totality as the Moon rises.

Get weekly stargazing advice by signing up to our e-newsletter and subscribing to our YouTube channel.

Lunar eclipses explained

A lunar eclipse occurs when the Sun, Earth and the Moon are aligned in a straight line, in that order.

Light from the Sun illuminates the full disc of the Moon, but because Earth is in the way, that sunlight has to pass through Earth’s atmosphere before hitting the Moon.

As it passes through our atmosphere, sunlight is scattered, meaning shorter wavelengths (blue) are dispersed to a greater extent than longer wavelengths (red).

Red light, being less scattered, is bent – or refracted – towards the Moon, giving the light a reddish colour.

Sometimes, for this reason, you’ll hear a total lunar eclipse being called a ‘blood Moon’.

Corn Moon eclipse

You’ll probably hear that this total lunar eclipse occurs during the Corn Moon.

‘Corn Moon’ is one of many nicknames given to each of the monthly full Moons of the year.

These nicknames reflect changes or significant moments in nature that occur during the month in question.

So, for example, the ‘Snow Moon’ is the February full Moon. The June full Moon is the ‘Strawberry Moon’, because June is the month when strawberries are ripe for picking.

This total lunar eclipse rises on September 7, 2025, meaning it’s the Corn Moon. But every September full Moon is known as the ‘Corn Moon’, not just this one.

It’s because this September 2025 full Moon is also a total lunar eclipse, that you’ll hear some refer to it as a ‘Corn Moon eclipse’.

The term ‘Corn Moon’ doesn’t indicate that the September full Moon will appear differently to any other full Moon of the year.

However, this September 2025 full Moon will appear different, because it’s undergoing a total lunar eclipse.

Unlike a solar eclipse, a lunar eclipse is perfectly safe to observe with the naked eye.

Timings for the September 7, 2025 lunar eclipse

The best places to see all of the September 7, 2025 total lunar eclipse will be in Asia, western Australia and the very eastern parts of Africa.

You can also see the total lunar eclipse in Antarctica, the western Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean.

If you want to observe the eclipse from the UK or Ireland, read our UK guide to the September 7, 2025 lunar eclipse.

Here are the timings for the eclipse, in UTC, which is Coordinated Universal Time.

• 3:28 PM UTC – Penumbral eclipse begins
• 4:27 PM UTC – Partial eclipse begins
• 5:30 PM UTC – Total eclipse begins
• 6:11 PM UTC – Maximum eclipse
• 6:52 PM UTC – Total eclipse ends
• 7:56 PM UTC – Partial eclipse ends
• 8:55 PM UTC – Penumbral eclipse ends

Watch the lunar eclipse online

If you’re clouded out, or not in a part of the world where you’ll be able to see the total phase of the September 2025 lunar eclipse, you can watch a livestream of the event online, courtesy of Time and Date.

If you manage to see or photograph the September 7, 2025 total lunar eclipse, get in touch by emailing contactus@skyatnightmagazine.com

Thank you. Listen to this article using the player above. ✖

Nuclear reactors and spacecraft are exposed to high levels of radiation and high temperatures, so it’s critical the metals they’re made of are strong and stable.

Researchers at the Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) are studying a special type of metal called high entropy alloy (HEA), which is made by combining several different metals together.

While previous research has shown HEA is extremely tough and can handle exposure to radiation better than regular metals, little is known about what happens inside HEA under such extreme conditions.

Dr. Qiang Wang and colleagues from CNL set about to change that. They used the ultrabright synchrotron light of the Canadian Light Source at the University of Saskatchewan to study a HEA composed of chromium, iron, manganese and nickel.

“It has to be stable, so it won’t change the microstructure at high heat, and have a certain resistance to irradiation,” Wang said. “That’s why we chose this material. And also because it is reasonably easy to manufacture.”

The group bombarded their special recipe HEA with high-energy particles called protons at  400°C and 600°C and exposed it to different amounts of radiation. Using synchrotron X-rays, Wang and the team looked closely for tiny changes.

They discovered small plate-shaped defects, called “Frank loops,” which were more common at lower temperatures but larger at higher temperatures. The team also found that the metals started to separate, especially at higher temperatures; some areas in the metal lost more manganese, while others gained more nickel and iron. Their findings, says Wang, provide new insight into specifically how HEAs stand up under extreme conditions.

“We did find some advantages and some things we didn’t expect to happen, so obviously this material needs to be better studied to fully understand the applications,” Wang said.

However, he added, this material exhibited fewer defects than stainless steel exposed to similar conditions. Stainless steel is approved for and commonly used in nuclear applications.

To Wang’s knowledge, this study is the first of its kind in Canada — and the alloy itself was manufactured in this country. Time will tell, he says, whether the alloys will be used for equipment manufacturing or shielding.

“It’s still not code approved in the nuclear industry so we don’t know exactly what it will be used for, which is why we are testing the material to see if it can meet those qualifications.”

Given that many countries are looking to advance nuclear power generation in the face of climate change, Wang said their work has potential real-world applications in improving the safety and functionality of reactors.

Reference: Wang Q, Yuan H, Dai C, et al. Proton irradiation-induced microstructure changes in a CrFeMnNi high entropy alloy. J Nucl Mater. 2025;615:155940. doi: 10.1016/j.jnucmat.2025.155940

This article has been republished from the following materials. Note: material may have been edited for length and content. For further information, please contact the cited source. Our press release publishing policy can be accessed here.

The efficiency of quantum computers, sensors and other applications often relies on the properties of electrons, including how they are spinning. One of the most accurate systems for high performance quantum applications relies on tapping into the spin properties of electrons of atoms trapped in a gas, but these systems are difficult to scale up for use in larger quantum devices like quantum computers.

Now, a team of researchers from Penn State and Colorado State has demonstrated how a gold cluster can mimic these gaseous, trapped atoms, allowing scientists to take advantage of these spin properties in a system that can be easily scaled up. 

“For the first time, we show that gold nanoclusters have the same key spin properties as the current state-of-the-art methods for quantum information systems,” said Ken Knappenberger, department head and professor of chemistry in the Penn State Eberly College of Science and leader of the research team.

“Excitingly, we can also manipulate an important property called spin polarization in these clusters, which is usually fixed in a material. These clusters can be easily synthesized in relatively large quantities, making this work a promising proof-of-concept that gold clusters could be used to support a variety of quantum applications.”

Two papers describing the gold clusters and confirming their spin properties appeared in ACS Central Science and The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters.

“An electron’s spin not only influences important chemical reactions, but also quantum applications like computation and sensing,” said Nate Smith, graduate student in chemistry in the Penn State Eberly College of Science and first author of one of the papers. “The direction an electron spins and its alignment with respect to other electrons in the system can directly impact the accuracy and longevity of quantum information systems.”

Much like the Earth spins around its axis, which is tilted with respect to the sun, an electron can spin around its axis, which can be tilted with respect to its nucleus. But unlike Earth, an electron can spin clockwise or counterclockwise. When many electrons in a material are spinning in the same direction and their tilts are aligned, the electrons are considered correlated, and the material is said to have a high degree of spin polarization. 

“Materials with electrons that are highly correlated, with a high degree of spin polarization, can maintain this correlation for a much longer time, and thus remain accurate for much longer,” Smith said.

The current state-of-the-art system for high accuracy and low error in quantum information systems involve trapped atomic ions — atoms with an electric charge — in a gaseous state. This system allows electrons to be excited to different energy levels, called Rydberg states, which have very specific spin polarizations that can last for a long period of time. It also allows for the superposition of electrons, with electrons existing in multiple states simultaneously until they are measured, which is a key property for quantum systems. 

“These trapped gaseous ions are by nature dilute, which makes them very difficult to scale up,” Knappenberger said. “The condensed phase required for a solid material, by definition, packs atoms together, losing that dilute nature. So, scaling up provides all the right electronic ingredients, but these systems become very sensitive to interference from the environment. The environment basically scrambles all the information that you encoded into the system, so the rate of error becomes very high. In this study, we found that gold clusters can mimic all the best properties of the trapped gaseous ions with the benefit of scalability.”

Scientists have heavily studied gold nanostructures for their potential use in optical technology, sensing, therapeutics and to speed up chemical reactions, but less is known about their magnetic and spin-dependent properties. In the current studies, the researchers specifically explored monolayer-protected clusters, which have a core of gold and are surrounded by other molecules called ligands. The researchers can precisely control the construction of these clusters and can synthesize relatively large amounts at one time. 

“These clusters are referred to as super atoms, because their electronic character is like that of an atom, and now we know their spin properties are also similar,” Smith said. “We identified 19 distinguishable and unique Rydberg-like spin-polarized states that mimic the super-positions that we could do in the trapped, gas-phase dilute ions. This means the clusters have the key properties needed to carry out spin-based operations.”

The researchers determined the spin polarization of the gold clusters using a similar method used with traditional atoms. While one type of gold cluster had 7% spin polarization, a cluster with different a ligand approached 40% spin polarization, which Knappenberger said is competitive with some of the leading two-dimensional quantum materials.

“This tells us that the spin properties of the electron are intimately related to the vibrations of the ligands,” Knappenberger said. “Traditionally, quantum materials have a fixed value of spin polarization that cannot be significantly changed, but our results suggest we can modify the ligand of these gold clusters to tune this property widely.”

The research team plans to explore how different structures within the ligands impact spin polarization and how they could be manipulated to fine tune spin properties.

“The quantum field is generally dominated by researchers in physics and materials science, and here we see the opportunity for chemists to use our synthesis skills to design materials with tunable results,” Knappenberger said. “This is a new frontier in quantum information science.”

Reference: Foxley J, Tofanelli M, Knappenberger JA, Ackerson CJ, Knappenberger KL. Diverse superatomic magnetic and spin properties of Au₁₄₄ (SC₈H₉ )₆₀ clusters. ACS Cent Sci. 2025:acscentsci.5c00139. doi: 10.1021/acscentsci.5c00139

This article has been republished from the following materials. Note: material may have been edited for length and content. For further information, please contact the cited source. Our press release publishing policy can be accessed here.

Enabling & Support

23/07/2025
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Follow the launch live

Tune in on 26 July from 03:40 CEST to watch the Vega-C rocket take flight once again. The livestream is available in English, French and Italian.

Time in CEST	Time after liftoff (hours:minutes:seconds)	Event
03:40		Programme begins
04:03	00:00:00	Liftoff
04:06	00:02:23	Vega-C first stage, P120C, separation
04:08	00:04:27	Vega-C second stage, Zefiro-40, separation
04:08	00:04:39	Fairing jettison
04:11	00:07:15	Vega-C third stage, Zefiro-9, separation
04:12	00:08:19	First ignition of Vega-C upper stage, AVUM+
04:21-04:52	00:17:53-00:49:00	Programme break
04:55	00:51:33	Second ignition of AVUM+ upper stage
05:01	00:57:17	CO3D satellites deployed in two pairs
05:04	01:00:15	Third ignition of AVUM+ upper stage
05:06-05:38	01:03:03-01:34:43	Programme break
05:40	01:36:43	Fourth ignition of AVUM+ upper stage
05:45	01:41:12	MicroCarb deployed

About Vega-C

Europe’s Vega-C rocket can launch 2300 kg into space, such as small scientific and Earth observation spacecraft. At 35 m tall, Vega-C weighs 210 tonnes on the launch pad and reaches orbit with three solid-propellant-powered stages before the fourth liquid-propellant stage takes over for precise placement of satellites into their desired orbit around Earth. Vega-C is the evolution of the Vega family of rockets and delivers increased performance, greater payload volume and improved competitiveness.

Complementing the Ariane family to launch all types of payloads into their desired orbits, Vega-C ensures that Europe has versatile and independent access to space. ESA leads the Vega-C programme, working with Avio as prime contractor and design authority. Arianespace is the launch service provider for this launch.

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