One of the challenges in the field of robotics is to find new materials that can be both flexible and strong to build new robots out of. There is constant innovation in the field and now engineers at Cornell University have created a hybrid material featuring stiff metal and soft, porous rubber foam that combines the best properties of both. The material can be stiff when required and elastic when needed. It even has self healing properties.

The metal – foam compound is sort of like the human body with skeletons and muscles said Rob Shepherd the engineering professor involved with the project. The idea blends the rigidity and load-bearing capacity of humans with the ability to dramatically alter shape, like an octopus said Shepherd. When you need the rigidity of the skeleton it is available and then it can be dissolved only to be reformed when next needed.

The material’s ability to morph from the solid to elastic states will give engineers a great deal of levy when constructing robots out of it. Imagine a rigid aircraft with wings which can dissolve and become a submarine? The possibilities of using the new material are too many to list. Only time and new science projects will introduce us to the true scope of the new hybrid material.

The concept of inter-vehicular communication to improve road safety is not a new one. Researchers from the Universitat Politècnica de València have come up with a new 5G radio access system for inter vehicular communication. This cutting edge science project is hoping to make road accidents a thing of the past as they improve the communication between vehicles to ensure that they don’t bump into each other on the go.

The project is a continuation of the METIS project and is internationally funded by the European Commission under Horizon2020. José F. Montserrat, project researcher says that the main novelty of the system is that is allows the continual adjustment of waveforms in such a way that vehicles can communicate with each other, thereby overcoming the hurdle of not having a set station for communication.

The eventual goals of the science project include optimised inter vehicular communication contributing to road safety and lower accident rates. It is just one example of the used of the 5G technology. The hardware consists of three FRGA programmable cards and four antennas. The combination of which will allow the integration of different wave forms into conventional mobile communication systems. A virtual demo on the streets of Madrid is already available.

The Bubble Nebula or NGC 7653 was first photographed by the new NASA/ ESA Hubble Space Telescope. What looks like a huge cosmic soap bubble is actually a cloud of gas and dust illuminated by the brilliant star within it. The extremely striking image is one that has made it to the Hubble Hall of Fame. It has also been chosen as the image for the celebration of Hubble Space Telescope’s 26th year in space!

The Hubble Space Telescope was launched into orbit on 24 April 1990 aboard the space shuttle Discovery.  Each year to commemorate the anniversary a spectacular image taken from the telescope is picked out and displayed to the world as it gains its spot in the hall of fame. The astronomical objects that are pictured here are truly out of this world!

The Bubble Nebula is an emission nebula located 11,000 light-years away from Earth. It is part of the constellation Cassiopeia which was initially discovered in 1787 by  William Herschel. The image is actually a mosaic of four different pictures put together to show us the huge nebula in one image. The bubble’s shell is likely to be caused by stellar winds theorize researchers. Lot more to study in this science project.

The existence of a true ninth planet of the Solar System was proposed by astrophysicists at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. It was based on the observation of a possible ice giant which seemed to show up on the wide field infra-red Survey Explorer undertaken by NASA.

Astrophysicists at the University of Bern have created a model of the possible planet in the outer solar system. The celestial body is likely to be of a radius 3.7 times that of Earth. With a temperature of 226 degrees Celsius, it is likely to have an envelope of helium and hydrogen.

Planet 9 is likely to be a smaller version of Neptune or Uranus. It would have also formed 4.6 billion years ago along with the other planets that evolved in the solar system as per the model projections. The study now gives physical properties to what was earlier just a simple point mass.

While more science projects  from the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope in the future will be able to give us a better idea of just what this Planet 9 is like or if it exists at all, it is interesting to note what educated guesses the astrophysicists have taken at this point of time.

For fans of the movie series Star Wars the world of Tatoonie is nothing new. It is the home planet of Anakin Skywalker, the primary protagonist of the story. A harsh desert world orbiting twin suns in the galaxy’s Outer Rim, Tatooine is a lawless place ruled by Hutt gangsters. It was clearly science fiction because how could a planet be orbiting two suns? It does not compute! Or does it?!

Apparently Astronomers have found out that 680 light-years from Earth lies a planet orbiting three stars. Yes you  read it correctly – three stars! Initially the guys at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics thought that it was a single star, but changed their observation to a binary star system. And now they have confirmed that it is infact a star going around an orbit of the binary star system.

Add to this magnificent phenomenon a planet the size of Jupiter in our solar system, and you have an actual possible Tatoonie on your hands. The celestial bodies are part of the KELT system and it took the observers roughly about thirty years of close scientific observations to understand that KELT B and KELT C were actually two different stars situated really close to each other.