Aviation News

December 24, 2024

Top Headlines

First Results from 2021 Rocket Launch Shed Light on Aurora's Birth

Dec. 19, 2024 — Scientist have begun to reveal the particle-level processes that create the type of auroras that dance rapidly across the sky. The Kinetic-scale Energy and momentum Transport experiment -- KiNET-X -- lifted off from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in ...

Researchers Demonstrate High Accuracy of Observation Device That Can Be Dropped Into Typhoon Without Parachute

Dec. 17, 2024 — Researchers have demonstrated the high accuracy of their newly developed typhoon observation device that can be dropped from an aircraft into the eye of a typhoon. This kind of device, called a ...

Travelers Weigh in on Weight-Based Airfares for Eco-Friendly Skies

Dec. 17, 2024 — The holidays are in full swing and people are shopping, wrapping and packing to visit loved ones. Along with the extra fees for checked baggage and seat upgrades, some airlines are also considering weight-based pricing. A recent study looked at how ...

Bird-Inspired Drone Can Jump for Take-Off

Dec. 6, 2024 — Researchers have built a drone that can walk, hop, and jump into flight with the aid of birdlike legs, greatly expanding the range of potential environments accessible to unmanned aerial ...

Latest Headlines

updated 11:09pm EST

Tapping Excess Heat from a Camp Stove for Charging Power

Nov. 20, 2024 — New research may make it possible to keep electronic devices powered with another piece of equipment you're likely to bring with you while exploring the great outdoors: camping stoves. The work ...

Researchers Are Making Jet Engines Fit for the Hydrogen Age

Nov. 8, 2024 — Hydrogen-powered planes are set to take wing around the world in the future. To make this possible, engineers have to develop the jet engines that will power them. Experiments by researchers are now ...

Fueling Greener Aviation With Hydrogen

Nov. 1, 2024 — Despite ongoing efforts to curb CO2 emissions with electric and hybrid vehicles, other forms of transportation remain significant contributors of greenhouse gases. To address this issue, old ...

Bird Wings Inspire New Approach to Flight Safety

Oct. 28, 2024 — Engineers found a way to help airplanes avoid stall with lightweight plastic flaps that flutter with pressure changes. The flaps mimick a class of feathers that are key to birds' most daring aerial ...

Researchers Develop New Coatings to Boost Turbine Engine Efficiency

Oct. 23, 2024 — A multidisciplinary research group has formulated new protective coatings to allow turbine engines to run hotter -- with potential dividends for the environment and ...

Study Uncovers How Silkworm Moth's Odor Detection May Improve Robotics

Oct. 15, 2024 — Researchers explore how the domesticated flightless silkworm moth (Bombyx mori), a prominent insect model in olfactory research, uses wing flapping to manipulate airflow, enhancing their ability to ...

deepSPACE Design Tool Takes a Concept to a Multitude of Configurations

Oct. 2, 2024 — deepSPACE isn't a futuristic film, a new videogame or the next season of a classic TV series. In fact, the new design software developed by an aerospace engineer isn't about outer space at all. This ...

Who Lives in the Treetops? DNA-Collecting Drone Provides Insights

Sep. 26, 2024 — Squinting into the treetops won't reveal the tiny organisms up there. But these creatures leave clues, in the form of DNA, on the leaves and branches. Now, researchers report that they have developed ...

New Continuous Reaction Process Can Help Turn Plant Waste Into Sustainable Aviation Fuel

Sep. 26, 2024 — Scientists successfully tested a new way to produce sustainable jet fuel from lignin-based agricultural waste. The team's research demonstrated a ...

Contrail Avoidance Is Less Likely to Damage Climate by Mistake Than Previously Thought, Study Finds

Sep. 16, 2024 — A new study allays fears that rerouting flights to avoid forming climate-warming contrails could result in inadvertently making climate warming ...

Engineers Unveil AI Model for Predicting, Controlling Pandemic Spread

Oct. 24, 2024 — A team of engineers has published a study on how international air travel has influenced the spread of COVID-19, finding Western Europe, the Middle East and North America as leading regions in ...

NASA Reveals Prototype Telescope for Gravitational Wave Observatory

Oct. 22, 2024 — NASA has revealed the first look at a full-scale prototype for six telescopes that will enable, in the next decade, the space-based detection of gravitational ...

Study on Planet-Warming Contrails 'a Spanner in the Works' for Aviation Industry

Aug. 7, 2024 — Modern commercial aircraft flying at high altitudes create longer-lived planet-warming contrails than older aircraft, a new study has ...

Climate Change Will Bring More Turbulence to Flights in the Northern Hemisphere, Study Finds

July 25, 2024 — A type of invisible, unpredictable air turbulence is expected to occur more frequently in the Northern Hemisphere as the climate warms. Known as clear air turbulence, the phenomenon also increased in ...

Hydrogen Flight Looks Ready for Take-Off With New Advances

July 11, 2024 — The possibility of hydrogen-powered flight means greater opportunities for fossil-free travel, and the technological advances to make this happen are moving fast. New studies show that almost all air ...

Engine Wear Risk as Planes Swallow More Dust Waiting to Land

July 8, 2024 — Planes flying into one of the world's busiest airports are ingesting around 10kg of dust per 1,000 ...

Light-Controlled Artificial Maple Seeds Could Monitor the Environment Even in Hard-to-Reach Locations

June 27, 2024 — Researchers have developed a tiny robot replicating the aerial dance of falling maple seeds. In the future, this robot could be used for real-time environmental monitoring or delivery of small ...

Pushing an Information Engine to Its Limits

June 6, 2024 — The molecules that make up the matter around us are in constant motion. What if we could harness that energy and put it to use? Over 150 years ago Maxwell theorized that if molecules' motion ...

Best of Both Worlds: Innovative Positioning System Enhances Versatility and Accuracy of Drone-Viewpoint Mixed Reality Applications

June 5, 2024 — Researchers have developed an innovative positioning system that enhances the versatility and accuracy of drone-viewpoint mixed reality (MR) applications by aligning real and virtual world ...

Airborne Technology Brings New Hope to Map Shallow Aquifers in Earth's Most Arid Deserts

May 16, 2024 — The new technique will map the top of the aquifer, called the 'water table,' spanning areas as large as hundreds of kilometers using a radar mounted on a high-altitude aircraft. According ...

Robotic 'SuperLimbs' Could Help Moonwalkers Recover from Falls

May 15, 2024 — SuperLimbs, a system of wearable robotic limbs, can physically support an astronaut and lift them back on their feet after a fall, helping them conserve energy for other essential ...

Animal Brain Inspired AI Game Changer for Autonomous Robots

May 15, 2024 — A team of researchers has developed a drone that flies autonomously using neuromorphic image processing and control based on the workings of animal brains. Animal brains use less data and energy ...

Studying Bubbles Can Lead to More Efficient Biofuel Motors

May 15, 2024 — By studying how bubbles form in a drop of biodiesel, researchers can help future engines get the most energy out of the ...

US Navy Growler Jet Noise Over Whidbey Island Could Impact 74,000 People's Health

May 10, 2024 — As often as four days a week, Boeing EA-18G Growler electronic attack aircraft based at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island fly loops overhead as pilots practice touch-and-go landings. The noise is ...

Big Data Reveals True Climate Impact of Worldwide Air Travel

Apr. 30, 2024 — A new study that looked at nearly 40 million flights in 2019 calculated the greenhouse gas emissions from air travel for essentially every country on the planet. At 911 million tons, the total ...

Scientists Capture X-Rays from Upward Positive Lightning

Apr. 26, 2024 — Researchers have for the first time recorded X-rays being produced at the beginning of upward positive lightning flashes; an observation that gives important insight into the origins of this rare -- ...

Airborne Single-Photon Lidar System Achieves High-Resolution 3D Imaging

Apr. 25, 2024 — Researchers have developed a compact and lightweight single-photon airborne lidar system that can acquire high-resolution 3D images with a low-power laser. This advance could make single-photon lidar ...

High-Resolution Lidar Sees Birth Zone of Cloud Droplets

Apr. 24, 2024 — Scientists demonstrated the first-ever remote observations of the fine-scale structure at the base of clouds. The results show that the air-cloud interface is a transition zone where aerosol ...

Silent Flight Edges Closer to Take Off

Apr. 18, 2024 — A new study reveals how noise is generated and propagated from these engines, technically known as boundary layer ingesting (BLI) ducted ...

'Nanostitches' Enable Lighter and Tougher Composite Materials

Apr. 16, 2024 — In an approach they call 'nanostitching,' engineers used carbon nanotubes to prevent cracking in multilayered composites. The advance could lead to next-generation airplanes and ...