Tiny Optical Frequency Clock Measures Time Accurately to 270 Quintillionths of a Second

The optical clock developed by UCLA Engineering researchers is the small black strip between the two black cylinders.

As reported by Phys.Org: Researchers at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science have created an optical clock that's just 1 cubic centimeter—small enough to fit on a standard silicon chip—and can track time intervals with precision to 270 quintillionths of second. (One quintillionth is equivalent to 1 times 10 to the negative 18th power, or 0.000000000000000001.)

Today's most accurate clocks, atomic clocks, are used to keep time for the Internet and satellite communications, and help astronomers detect Earth-like planets beyond our solar system. Their accuracy—to "only" within a tenth of trillionths of a second, or 1 times 10 to the negative 13th power—is based on the naturally occurring frequencies of atoms that respond to radiation. The atomic frequencies can be expressed as a "frequency comb," a series of evenly spaced vertical lines of light produced by the atoms under radiation into microwave frequencies that are accessible to the electronic instruments that ultimately turn those readings into accurate measurements of time.

Previous optical clocks were much larger than the new one developed at UCLA: They used large fiber lasers that needed to be housed in equipment about the size of a desktop computer. The UCLA team was able to shrink the mechanism significantly to 1 cubic centimeter by using a process similar to how silicon chips are made. The new clock's precision approaches the world's best frequency standards.

The clock could lead to more precise measurements of space and time, an area known as attosecond physics, and could have applications in optical, wireless and space-based communications. For example, it could be used to measure the movement of atoms, or to discern the movement of distant objects far beyond our solar system.

"If incorporated with other technologies into infrared telescope observatories, this device can enable the detection of Earth-like planets and celestial objects 100 times smaller than that, which was previously impossible," said Shu-Wei Huang, a UCLA Engineering scientist and the project's lead author. The research was published in Science Advances. Chee Wei Wong, a UCLA associate professor of electrical engineering, is the project's principal investigator.

"Measuring the time it takes for a pulse of light to reflect from an object and return back to us also tells us a distance," Wong said. "This could help in precision laser distance ranging, such as in sensing for self-driven automobiles and aerial vehicles."

Wong said the laser clock could help generate ever-shorter pulses of light, which would be useful for watching the motion of electrons or detecting trace hazardous materials from faraway distances.

The new clock could also help further refine the absolute value of "fundamental constants," numbers that are thought to be same throughout the universe—for example, the strength of electromagnetic interactions between electrons and other elementary particles.

Wong said because the clock is cast on a silicon chip, it is more reliable than the previous, larger model, which required additional stabilization and control electronics to work.

The paper's other authors are Jinghui Yang of UCLA, Mingbin Yu and Dim-Lee Kwong of Singapore's Institute for Microelectronics , and Bart McGuyer and Tanya Zelevinsky of Columbia University.

SpaceX Has Landed its Fastest-Flying Rocket Yet on a Floating Platform at Sea

As reported by Quartz: Flying satellites and landing rockets are almost becoming routine for the Elon Musk’s rocket company, but SpaceX still managed to wedge a new milestone into their latest flight.

After launching JCSAT-14, a Japanese satellite that will provide TV and data services across the Pacific early this morning, SpaceX landed the first stage of its rocket on a floating platform at sea for the second time ever, a novel technique the company has developed to reuse more of its rockets and save costs.

Today’s landing does offer something new to the discerning observer: This is the first time that the company has landed a rocket that flew to “geosynchronous transfer orbit,” or GTO. That means it set its satellite cargo on a path to reach an altitude where the speed of its orbit will match the speed of earth’s rotation, allowing it to “hang” over one place, about 36,000 kilometers above us.

To get that high, the rocket must be going much faster than to reach, say, the International Space Station in low earth orbit. You can get a sense of the distance with our satellite map. So far, SpaceX has only landed reusable rockets that had delivered payloads to low earth orbit, because they’re already going slower when it comes time for them to turn around and head for earth.

When the rocket is taking its cargo to GTO, it requires three times the deceleration of one heading for low earth orbit. When the company tried to land a rocket that sent cargo to GTO earlier this year, it landed “hard,” though no images were released—we imagine it looked something like this failed landing from January, 2015:

But, as always with Musk, there’s a business plan behind the technology. The most lucrative satellites are those that hang over one spot on earth in their geosynchronous orbits. Introducing reusability into that launch market is key to lowering the price and growing SpaceX’s market share. And, at a time when numerous companies are developing cheap solutions to launch satellites in to low-earth orbit, ensuring dominance at the highest of altitudes will insulate SpaceX from those competitors.

Besides rocket reusability—and its implications for a trip to Mars—the big 2016 goal for SpaceX is a steady launch tempo. Initially, the plan ran into trouble thanks to a new fueling system, but it appears the kinks have been sorted out. The company has so far launched four out of 18 launches expected by SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell.

This is the third first stage that SpaceX has landed, leading Musk to joke that he’ll need a bigger rocket storage hangar. But that also raises the question: When will one of these rockets be re-used?

SpaceX Hired a Superhero Suit Designer to Create Its Upcoming Spacesuit

As reported by Popular Mechanics: Jose Fernandez is the founder and lead designer at Ironhead Studios, the company responsible for designing numerous superhero suits for the big screen. The studio has tackled Spiderman,Thor, and most recently, Batman. But the next big suit with Ironhead's touch sounds like it'll be for real-life spacemen. Namely, the ones that will work for our real-life Tony Stark, Elon Musk.

In an interview with Tested, Fernandez offhandedly mentioned his work for SpaceX. "I designed a spacesuit for SpaceX," Fernandez says, at the end of a clip highlighted by a Redditor on the subreddit devoted to the private spaceflight company. "I can't show [it], but they're gonna reveal it in the next possible year."

As another Redditor was quick to point out, this isn't the first time Frenandez mentioned the project, just the first time anyone really picked up on it. In an interview with BLEEP magazine earlier this year, Fernandez went into deeper detail about the project, perhaps most interestingly about how concerned Musk was with the suit's style, and how the suit was first designed to look awesome and then was (or is still in the process of being) reverse-engineered from there.

As Fernandez told BLEEP:

"I worked with [Musk] for six months and at the end of that, we created a suit that they are now reverse-engineering to make functional for flight. The look they are going to unveil in the next few months is something we created here in the studio. He wanted it to look stylish. It had to be practical but also needed to look great. It's pretty bad ass. He kept saying, "Anyone looks better in a tux, no matter what size or shape they are," and when people put this space suit on, he wants them to look better than they did without it, like a tux. You look heroic in it. It's an iconic thing be a part of."

It's a priority Musk has stressed before, and considering the sort of delightful but cartoonish look of NASA's upcoming suits, it seems like Musk should have plenty of room to edge in the SpaceX suit as "the cool one." Until the actual reveal, we'll just have to guess at how it might look, but lets just say the bar is looking pretty high.

SpaceX teased the new suit in a Crew Dragon conceptual video last year; though there's no guarantee that Frenandez's suit will look anything like what you've seen so far:

Whatever's happening, this won't be an easy task. Spacesuits have understandably stricter demands for comfort, durability and safety -- a ripped, damaged, or malfunctioning suit in space can do a lot more than ruin a day of filming.

Tesla Puts its Extreme Air Pollution Filter to the Test

As reported by Engadget: When Tesla revealed that the Model X (and eventually, the Model S) would have a HEPA filter so effective that it could protect against bioweapons, people were understandably skeptical. Can it really save you from terrorists? Apparently, it just might. Tesla has revealed some of the in-house testing it conducted for the filter's Bioweapon Defense Mode, and its ability to clean the air borders on overkill. 

The electric car maker put a Model X into a bubble with extremely dangerous air quality levels (83 times dirtier than the EPA's "good" rating) and watched as the filtration system rendered the air so clean that sensors couldn't even detect what pollution was left. You could drive through a "military grade" attack and not even notice, Tesla claims.

The company adds that its filter also reduces some of the pollution outside of the car, and that it's constantly tweaking the filter technology. Replace your filters down the line and your EV might be even more of a clean room than it was brand new.

It's impressive stuff, although the test is more about bragging than real-world practicality (which Tesla also checked, to be fair). You don't need a near-sterile car even in pollution-heavy cities like Beijing, and the odds are that you aren't going to be in your vehicle should someone ever unleash a bioweapon on your home turf. Think of this more as proof that Tesla's over-the-top engineering really works... most of the time, anyway.

Google's Self-Driving Tech May Go Into Chrysler Minivans This Year

As reported by Engadget: That rumored deal between Google and Fiat Chrysler for self-driving car technology? It's reportedly happening... if not quite in the way you'd expect. Bloomberg sources claim that the arrangement will put some of Google's autonomous tech into the 2017 Chrysler Pacifica minivan sometime this year. Just how deep this integration would go isn't clear, but it's not believed to be an exclusive arrangement -- either side could cooperate with other partners. If the leak is accurate, the deal could be signed as soon as May 3rd (if you're reading this in time, today).

Once again, the partnership makes more sense than you might think. Google (or rather, Alphabet) already said that it wasn't going to mass-produce its own cars, so it was always going to need help -- this is its first major deal. Fiat Chrysler, meanwhile, has been hoping for a fast track to self-driving technology to help it compete against rivals that have already done a lot of legwork.

And minivans? They could make more sense than you think. While you're unlikely to see truly driverless Chryslers anytime soon, this would show that Google's know-how can improve one of the most mainstream vehicles you can find: a run-of-the-mill (if relatively high-end) family carrier. If Google and Fiat Chrysler succeed there, the technology could easily spread to other models and manufacturers.

SpaceX: Our Falcon Rockets Are More Powerful Than We Thought

As reported by Engadget: If you thought SpaceX was already making a fuss over the capabilities of both its existing Falcon 9 rocket and the upcoming Falcon Heavy, you haven't seen anything yet. The company has posted updated specs showing that both vehicles are more powerful than previously thought. A Falcon 9 is now known to be capable of hauling 50,265lbs to low Earth orbit, up from just shy of 29,000 pounds. The Falcon Heavy, meanwhile, will carry 119,930lbs instead of the previously promised 116,845lbs. Elon Musk chalks up the improved figures to more thorough testing -- SpaceX hasn't upgraded the hardware, at least not yet.

However, the private space firm is also raising expectations across the board. Musk plans to increase the Falcon 9's rated liftoff thrust to 1.71 million (up from 1.3 million), and the Falcon Heavy will now put out 5.1 million pounds on liftoff instead of the earlier 4.5 million. That's twice the thrust of any other rocket in service, the exec claims.



This is all good news for a company that wants to get to Mars in a hurry, but the proof will be in the pudding. After all, SpaceX has pushed back the Falcon Heavy's first launch multiple times (now due for sometime in November). Although development appears to be winding down for that rocket, you'll only know for sure what it and the up-rated Falcon 9 are truly capable of when they leave the launchpad.

Jet-Powered Hoverboard Shatters World Record

As reported by Engadget: When footage of a flying hoverboard first emerged last month, many thought it was fake, because the relatively tiny device appears to be breaking the laws of physics. But the "Flyboard Air" from inventor Franky Zapata is real, spectacular and just set a world record for the longest hoverboard flight of all time. It traveled 2,252 meters or about 7,388 feet, nearly ten times farther than the mark set last year by Catalin Alexandru Duru on a much larger device. The record has already been certified by Guinness, which attended the event.

Frenchman Zapata is the man behind the Flyboard, a watersports device that amounts to a firehose attached to boots. However, the Flyboard Air is completely untethered, and has mind-boggling specs -- it can supposedly fly up to 10,000 feet high and hit 93 miles per hour. Zapata makes it look pretty easy to maneuver, as shown in a test run video (below) made earlier, though he is a jet ski champ with a lot of experience on the original Flyboard. In fact, he says that it would be insane to try the Flyboard Air without at least 50 hours of experience on the water-powered model.

Given the performance, the Flyboard Air makes every jet pack out there obsolete, as it has better range, height, speed and maneuverability. It took Zapata four years to create the device, which runs on four 250-horsepower RC jet engines, according to The Verge. It's powered by Jet A1 kerosene held in a backpack, and engine power is controlled by a hand-held remote. There's no steering wheel, obviously -- the pilot turns by banking and shifting his body weight.

Zapata only flies the device above water, and was forced to deliberately splash down recently after the battery system failed. "It broke all the electronics on the board, so it will cost me money, but the rest of it is fine," he told the The Verge. He adds that the system can run on three of the four jet engines in case one fails, and that the sensors and WiFi control channels have triple redundancy.The company plans more demonstrations and will soon release additional footage. As for commercializing it, Zapata has already been approached by numerous companies, and thinks the Flyboard Air would be useful for government and security forces. He's even working on a more advanced design that would be easier for the general public to use. "If everybody wants a Flyboard Air, we have to work with the government, we have to work with liability, we have to work on a thousand things. But why not?"