Space Plane Tech Could Power Hypersonic Aircraft​ for US Military

This artist's illustration depicts the Skylon concept vehicle.

Credit: Adrian Mann

Engine technology being developed for a British space plane could also find its way into hypersonic aircraft built by the U.S. military.

The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory is studying hypersonic vehicles that would use the Synergetic Air-Breathing Rocket Engine (SABRE), which the English company Reaction Engines Ltd. is working on to power the Skylon space plane, AFRL officials said.

"AFRL is formulating plans to look at advanced vehicle concepts based on Reaction Engine's heat-exchanger technology and SABRE engine concept," officials with AFRL, which is based in Ohio, told reporters.

SABRE and Skylon were invented by Alan Bond and his team of engineers at the Abingdon, England-based Reaction Engines.

SABRE burns hydrogen and oxygen. It acts like a jet engine in Earth's thick lower atmosphere, taking in oxygen to combust with onboard liquid hydrogen.

When SABRE reaches an altitude of 16 miles (26 kilometers) and five times the speed of sound (Mach 5), however, it switches over to Skylon's onboard liquid oxygen tank to reach orbit.

Two SABREs will power the Skylon space plane, a privately funded, single-stage-to-orbit concept vehicle t-hat is 276 feet (84 meters) long. At takeoff, the plane will weigh about 303 tons (275,000 kilograms).



The SABRE heat exchanger is also known as a pre-cooler. It will cool the air entering Skylon's engines from more than 1,832 degrees Fahrenheit (1,000 degrees Celsius) down to minus 238 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 150 degrees C) in one one-hundredth of a second.

The oxygen in the chilled air will become liquid in the process.

"The [pre-cooler] performance has always been pretty much what we predicted," Bond explained to reporters at the Farnborough International Airshow in England on July 16.

"We've now done over 700 actual tests. It's now done as much service as a pre-cooler would in a real engine."

Bond's team has also successfully tested the pre-cooler for a problem aviation jet engines have to deal with: foreign objects being sucked in.

"We know it [the pre-cooler] can take debris, insects, leaves," Bond said.

ISS Astronauts See Typhoon Neoguri's Power from Space

Scary. The sunlight is far from reaching down the abyss of Neoguri's 65 km-wide eye," wrote ESA's Alexander Gerst from the International Space Station July 7.

Credit: NASA/ESA

Astronauts in space had a front-row seat this week to watch the Typhoon Neoguri transform into a powerful a super typhoon that dominated the Pacific Ocean, then downgrade back into a typical typhoon.

The space travelers capture stunning images of that stormy drama from their home aboard the International Space Station.

"Just went right above Supertyphoon Neoguri. It is ENORMOUS. Watch out, Japan!" Alexander Gerst, a German astronaut with the European Space Agency, wrote of a photo he posted on Flickr.com Monday (July 7).

The image shows the huge storm swirling below a module and solar panel on the station. It was just one of several Gerst sent from the orbiting outpost.

NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman tweeted several photos of the storm, looking at its eye, framing it below a Japanese module on station and showing it above Taiwan.

"Just went right above Supertyphoon Neoguri. It is ENORMOUS. Watch out, Japan!", wrote ESA's Alexander Gerst from the International Space Station July 7.

Credit: NASA/ESAView full size image

On Tuesday (July 8), Wiseman sent another photo showing Neoguri fading: "Neoguri has been literally cut in half. Unreal," he wrote.

Typhoon Neoguri first formed in the western Pacific Ocean, south-southeast of Guam, on July 3, a NASA spokesman wrote in an update on the storm.

"Neoguri update: looks like a big piece is missing from this Typhoon. Amazing to see this happen in less than one day!," wrote ESA's Alexander Gerst from the International Space Station July 8. 

Credit: NASA/ESA

"Since then Neoguri has become increasingly more powerful and dangerous," wrote Rob Gutro from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in an update today (July 9).

As of yesterday, the typhoon's top speed was at 105 knots (121 mph, or 195 km/hr). It also was pushing up wave heights to 37 feet (11.2 meters), he added.

The U.S. Joint Typhoon Warning Center was tracking Typhoon Neoguri moving north, but forecasted it will turn to the northeast and then east in the coming hours.

The typhoon is expected to make landfall at Kyushu, the third-largest Japanese island, after 8 p.m. EDT Thursday, July 10 (0000 Friday UTC).

ESA's Mars Express: Becquerel crater - The erosive power of wind and water

A striking scene in and around Becquerel crater – the largest crater in this view – reveals both the power of wind and water in the turbulent history of Mars. 

A mound of light-coloured sulphate deposits formed from evaporating water sits inside the crater amid a sea of dark wind-blown deposits. 

The darker material has blown towards the south-southwest (top left) of the image in a wide swath and across tiny craters there – their raised rims protect the material immediately downwind from being swept away. 

Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin (G. Neukum)

Exceptional structures deposited and shaped by water and winds adorn these interlocking craters and sculpt radiating patterns in the sands of Mars.

This mosaic, which focuses on Becquerel crater in Arabia Terra, is composed of four images taken by the high-resolution stereo camera on ESA's Mars Express.

Arabia Terra is in the transition zone between the southern highlands and the northern lowlands of Mars.

Becquerel crater is named for the 19th-century French physicist Antoine Henri Becquerel (1852–1908), winner of the Nobel Prize in physics in 1903 along with Marie and Pierre Curie for the discovery of radioactivity.

It is the largest crater in this scene, with a diameter of 167 km, and drops to a depth of about 3.5 km below the surrounding terrain.

A second large crater lies within Becquerel, punching even deeper into the surface, as seen in the Mars Express topography and 3D images.

The perspective view below reveals an intriguing, large mound within Becquerel's crater walls, reminiscent of Mount Sharp in Gale crater, currently being explored by NASA's Curiosity rover.

The mound rises about 1 km above the crater floor and comprises hundreds of layers of light-toned sediments, each just a few metres thick, made of sulphate-bearing rocks.

Location of Becquerel crater within Arabia Terra, at about 22°N/352°E. 

The main image is a mosaic of four images taken by the High Resolution Stereo Camera on ESA’s Mars Express on 22 July 2006 (orbit 3253), 26 February 2008 (orbit 5332), 2 March 2008 (orbit 5332) and 7 March 2008 (orbit 5368). 

The orbit tracks and the area highlighted in the main image are indicated by the white rectangles. 

Credit: NASA MGS MOLA Science Team

On Earth, sulphates are most often formed via the evaporation of water, so the presence of these minerals in Becquerel crater suggests that water may once have pooled here in a vast crater lake, before evaporating away.

It is likely that the entire crater floor was once covered with such sediments, but over billions of years much of it has been eroded away by wind, leaving just a polished, rounded mound behind.

Similar light-toned sulphate-bearing deposits are seen all over Arabia Terra, including in the crater walls in this scene, pointing to a large-scale process that affected the entire region.

One popular theory is that large changes in the tilt of the rotational axis of Mars leads to significant changes in its climate, reflected in the thickness and repeating patterns found in the layers of sediment.

A change in the environmental conditions would affect the way in which the sediments were initially deposited, as well as their subsequent resistance to erosion.

Read the full story here

NASA Cassini Image: Saturn Storm's Explosive Power

This set of images from NASA's Cassini mission shows the turbulent power of a monster Saturn storm. 

The visible-light image in the back, obtained on Feb. 25, 2011, by Cassini's imaging camera, shows the turbulent clouds churning across the face of Saturn.

The inset infrared image, obtained a day earlier, by Cassini's visual and infrared mapping spectrometer, shows the dredging up of water and ammonia ices from deep in Saturn's atmosphere.

This was the first time water ice was detected in Saturn's atmosphere. The storm, first detected by Cassini's radio and plasma wave subsystem in December 2011, churned around the planet in a band around 33 degrees north.

Image Credit: NASA/ JPL-Caltech/ SSI/ Univ. of Arizona/ Univ. of Wisconsin

Read the full article on NASA JPL Photojournal site

NASA: In the Vortex of Power

Image Credit: NASA

Bridget R. Caswell (Wyle Information Systems, LLC)

John Wargo, lead technician at NASA Glenn's Propulsion System Laboratory (PSL) is performing an inspection on the inlet ducting, upstream of the Honeywell ALF 502 engine that was recently used for the NASA Engine Icing Validation test.

This test allows engine manufacturers to simulate flying through the upper atmosphere where large amounts of icing particles can be ingested and cause flame outs or a loss of engine power on aircraft.

This test was the first of its kind in the world and was highly successful in validating PSL's new capability. No other engine test facility has this capability.

John Wargo

Glenn is working with industry to address this aviation issue by establishing a capability that will allow engines to be operated at the same temperature and pressure conditions experienced in flight, with ice particles being ingested into full scale engines to simulate flight through a deep convective cloud.

The information gained through performing these tests will also be used to establish test methods and techniques for the study of engine icing in new and existing commercial engines, and to develop data required for advanced computer codes that can be specifically applied to assess an engine's susceptibility to icing in terms of its safety, performance and operability.

Road to Fusion: ITER blanket technology approved

The ITER machine with its 440 blanket modules.

The design of the ITER blanket system, a crucial technology on the way to fusion power, has been approved and is now ready to proceed to the manufacturing stage.

"The development and validation of the final design of the ITER blanket and first wall technology is a major achievement on our way to deuterium-tritium operation—the main goal of the ITER project," says Rene Raffray, in charge of the blanket for the ITER Organization.

"We are looking at a first-of-a-kind fusion blanket which will operate in a first-of-a-kind fusion experimental reactor."

The ITER blanket system provides the physical boundary for the plasma and contributes to the thermal and nuclear shielding of the vacuum vessel and the external machine components such as the superconducting magnets operating in the range of 4 Kelvin (-269°C).

Directly facing the ultra-hot plasma and having to cope with large electromagnetic forces, while interacting with major systems and other components, the blanket is arguably the most critical and technically challenging component in ITER.

The blanket consists of 440 individual modules covering a surface of 600 m2, with more than 180 design variants depending on the segments' position inside the vacuum vessel and their functionality.

Each module consists of a shield block and first wall, together measuring 1 x 1.5 metres and weighing up to 4.5 tons—dimensions that not only demand sophisticated remote handling in view of maintenance requirements during deuterium-tritium operation, but also an approach to attaching the modules which is far from trivial when considering the enormous electromagnetic forces.

The first wall is made out of shaped "fingers." These fingers are individually attached to a poloidal beam, the structural backbone of each first wall panel through which the cooling water will be distributed.

Each module consists of a shield block and first wall, together measuring 1 x 1.5 metres and weighing up to 4.5 tons.

Depending on their position inside the vacuum vessel, these panels are subject to different heat fluxes.

Two different kinds of panels have been developed: a normal heat flux panel designed for heat fluxes of up to 2 MW/m2 and an enhanced heat flux panel designed for heat fluxes of up to 4.7 MW/m2.

The enhanced heat flux panels are located in areas of the vacuum vessel with greater plasma-wall interaction and they make use of the hyper-vapotron technology, which is similar to that used for the divertor dome elements.

All panels are designed for up to 15,000 full power cycles and are planned to be replaced at least once during ITER's lifetime. A sophisticated R&D program is currently under way in Japan for the development of remote handling tools to dismantle and precisely re-position the panels.

The ITER blanket system provides the physical boundary for the plasma.

Due to the high heat deposition expected during plasma operation—the blanket is designed to take a maximum thermal load of 736 MW—ITER will be the first fusion device with an actively cooled blanket.

The cooling water is fed to and from the shield blocks through manifolds and branch pipes.

Furthermore, the modules have to provide passage for the multiple plasma diagnostic technologies, for the viewing systems, and for the plasma heating systems.

Because of its low plasma-contamination properties, beryllium has been chosen as the element to cover the first wall.

Other materials used for the blanket system are CuCrZr (Copper, Chromium, Zirconium) for the heat sink, ITER-grade steel 316L(N)-IG for the steel structure, Inconel 818 for the bolts and cartridges, an aluminium-bronze alloy for the pads that will buffer the electro-mechanical loads acting on the segments, and alumina for the insulating layer.

The procurement of the 440 shield blocks is equally shared between China and Korea.The first wall panels will be manufactured by Europe (50%), Russia (40%) and China (10%). Russia will, in addition, provide the flexible supports, the key pads and the electrical straps.

The preparation of the Procurement Arrangements will now be launched leading to the fabrication hand-over starting at the end of this year.

The assembly of the ITER blanket system is scheduled for the second assembly phase of the ITER machine starting in May 2021 and lasting until August 2022.

NASA ISS EVA: Spacewalkers to try power repair again Wednesday

Astronauts Sunita Williams and Akihiko Hoshide will venture back outside the International Space Station Wednesday for another attempt to install a replacement power switching unit that could not be plugged into the lab's electrical grid during a spacewalk last Thursday.

Equipped with an assortment of impromptu tools, the astronauts will attempt to clean the bolts needed to lock the 220-pound box in place, as well as the threaded bolt holes.

During Thursday's spacewalk, metal shavings were seen inside the bolt receptacles when main bus switching unit No. 1 -- MBSU No. 1 -- was removed.

While Williams and Hoshide attempted to blow out any remaining fragments using compressed nitrogen, they were unable to tighten down the replacement MBSU enough to engage cooling fins and gangs of electrical connectors.

Without MBSU No. 1, the space station was only drawing power from six of its eight solar panels, forcing flight controllers to carefully manage the lab's electrical useage while spacewalk planners studied the bolt problem and what might be done to fix it.

While that work was going on, the station's electrical system suffered an unrelated problem Saturday afternoon.

A direct current switching unit, or DCSU, dropped off line because of a presumed short somewhere in the system, effectively cutting a third solar array out of the station's power grid.

While the DCSU trip did not greatly worsen the station's power status, it marked the first time in several years that the lab complex has been forced to operate on just five of its eight power channels.

The DCSU problem will be addressed later, possibly with another spacewalk to install a replacement.

But in the near term, getting MBSU No. 1 bolted down and tied back into the lab's power system is the crew's top priority.

The space station is equipped with eight 115-foot-long solar panels, four on each end of a football-field-size truss that runs at right angles to the lab's pressurized modules.

The arrays rotate like giant paddle wheels as the station's orbits Earth to maximize power generation.

Each pair of arrays extend from integrated electronics assemblies containing batteries, cooling equipment, charge-discharge units and a direct current switching unit that passes power downstream to the station and back into the IEA.

The Rimac e-M3: 1984 3 Series with a 600hp electric power

What is the Rimac e-M3 evaluation vehicle?

This emerald green monster is the Rimac e-M3 evaluation vehicle - the technological testbed used to assess the viability for an all-electric supercar, the Rimac Concept One.

The Rimac Concept One

Due to its volt-powered propulsion system, the Concept_One should be pretty efficient, too - Rimac claims a 375-mile range between charges and quotes fuel economy at a conservative estimate of 125mpg electric equivalent.

According to their figures, drive the Concept_One with a feather light right foot and you could see close to 490.

Rimac Concept_One electric supercar offers 1,088hp

The Air Powered Motorcycle: O2-Pursuit

 

Last month industrial designer Dean Benstead unveiled the 02 Pursuit — a prototype for a motorcycle fueled not by gas or electricity, but by compressed air.

Based on the geometry of a 250cc motocrosser, the O2 Pursuit prototype uses the breakthrough engine technology developed by Angelo Di Pietro of Engineair.

Benstead, a recent graduate of the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), has harnessed the power that exists in the air tanks to mechanically drive the vehicle.

According to Benstead, testing of the motorcycle showed close to a quarter of an hour running time with stops at around 25-45 km/h. 

During stationary testing, Benstead’s team timed the speed off the back wheel, registering over 100 km/h. 

Preliminary testing of the prototype was limited to an indoors factory environment on a circular track.

“The bike is running a standard scuba tank which runs air compressed up to 200 bar, with further developments, we would be looking at running a tank at 400 bar with increased capacity to also increase the range,” he said.

The innovation was the result of Benstead’s final-year design research into the future of motorcycles, looking at air as a genuine alternative to petrol and electricity.

“Air was the starting point back in 2010, but I continued to explore this for the prototype because of its low-tech nature,” Benstead said. 

“A solar panel and a compressor now becomes your refinery and without huge battery packs to dispose of, we now have a low-cost to free powered bike with minimum impact on the environment.”

The project began mid last year at the RMIT Ecomoto, the only motorcycle-specific design studio in Australia. 

Led by RMIT Lecturer and Acting Program Director Simon Curtis, Benstead’s super motard bike project won him the Product Design – Automotive and Transport award at the 2010 Melbourne Design Awards.

The air engine developed by Engineair is still yet to be commercialized. The motor used in the 02 Pursuit was one of five prototypes in the world.

Benstead, recently named in Melbourne’s Top 100 most influential people, is currently working with Australia’s Engineair on a new design that can bring the technology to the market.

02 Pursuit specs:

• Top Speed: >100 km/h
• Weight: <100kg
• Engine: ‘Di Pietro’ 9 chamber air engine
• Engine Weight: 10kg
• Material: Aluminium
• Development: Melbourne

NASA Harness Microbial Fuel to Power Space Robots

A NASA-funded effort hopes to produce a prototype robot, weighing only about 2 pounds and powered by microbes within the next 10 years.

With the first year funding coming from the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts program, scientists plan to harness microbes as a source of almost endless power for the next generation of robotic explorers, offering an alternative to space missions that rely upon solar or nuclear power.

According to researchers, such microbial fuel could power space robots indefinitely, for as long as the bacteria have the small amount of food needed to stay alive and create electricity through their chemical reactions.

"Whether you're looking at satellites or planetary explorers, to have a power system that's not reliant on the sun of the solar system, day or night cycles, and hazardous materials such as nuclear or other harsh chemicals, means you really open a lot of doors for expanding the duration of scientific missions," said Gregory Scott, a space robotics engineer at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory.

While the microbial fuel cells cannot power huge robots, it can slowly charge a battery until enough energy exists to power a scientific instrument or move a tiny robot, and be able to keep a small space mission going for as long as necessary.

"The bacterial colony will live as long as you give it food - in our case, sugar - or one of the other biomass fuels we're looking into. The colony will be able to survive pretty much indefinitely," Scott said.

After the researchers are able to build a working prototype robot, they have to study the challenges of sending microbes on missions headed for deep space, asteroids or distant planets, including the question of protecting extraterrestrial surfaces from contamination.

"There are planetary protection concerns, as well as concerns about protecting the microbes themselves from radiation," Scott said.

"Sometime down the road we also have to consider whether the microbes we're looking at are most effective for radiation environments or extreme temperatures."

SUMPAC: Human-powered flight recreated for 50th anniversary

A flight has taken place at a Hampshire airfield to mark the 50th anniversary of the UK's first human-powered flight to attempt to gain the Kremer Prize.

On 9 November, 1961, gliding instructor Derek Piggott took off from Lasham Airfield in a pedal-powered aircraft.

Flying Southampton University's Man Powered Aircraft, (SUMPAC) he covered a distance of 64m (210ft) and climbed to a height of 1.8m (6ft).

With the SUMPAC now a museum exhibit, the commemorative flight took place in human-powered aircraft, Airglow.

Organised by members of the Royal Aeronautical Society's Human Powered Flight Group, pilot Robin Kraike made the flight early on Saturday.

Mr Kraike who flew the plane for about 1 mile (1.6km) said: "It's like doing a 800 metre sprint."

"It's a very busy place in the cockpit - you have to divide your body into two halves, the top part doing the delicate part of flying the plane and the bottom half you're going like the clappers to deliver the power."

Now aged 88, SUMPAC's former test pilot, Derek Piggott MBE, watched the commemorative flight from the airfield.

He recalled meeting the students who designed and built the original single-seat nylon covered craft which spanned 24.4m (80ft) 50 years ago.

The SUMPAC was powered using pedals and chains to drive a 2.4m (8ft) propeller

He said: "It all started with the students coming across to Lasham trying to find somewhere to fly their aeroplane. I was interested immediately, so we organised it."

He built up his fitness to power the pedal aircraft by running around the airfield.

"I wasn't a cyclist, so I was very lucky to get all the flying in it, we were going to train an Olympic cyclist to fly it but we never managed to teach him to fly."

Following a crash in 1963, the fragile SUMPAC was retired from flying and placed on display at Southampton's Solent Sky Museum.

NASA Rover Curiosity: Plutonium Dioxide Power

More power than can be achieved by solar panels is necessary to run the Mars Science Laboratory aka "Curiosity".

Heat from the decay of plutonium dioxide will generate 110 watts of electrical power to charge the rover's batteries.
Credit: NASA

Back from the Future! DeLorean to be resurrected

If you fell in love with the DeLorean in the Back to the Future movie series, the good news is that in 2013, you'll be able to buy a real one again.

It won't have a flux capacitor, won't time-travel and it'll still be a thirty year-old design (albeit styled by Giugiaro and structurally redesigned by Colin Chapman of Lotus fame after Delorean himself screwed up the first design).

It will have a 200+ bhp electric motor, not the original asthmatic V6 producing 130 bhp, and those awesome gull-wing doors and it'll be really retro cool.

It won't be called the DMC-12 any more either, because the 12 stood for its new price at launch - US$12,000. The new one will cost you between US$90,000 and US$100,000.

Background
Texas entrepreneur Stephen Wynne started the current "De Lorean Motor Company" in 1995 after acquiring the name and remaining parts inventory and since 2007, around 40 whole De Lorean cars have been produced from the spare parts cars.

Now the company is to go another step, and at an International De Lorean Owners Event in Houston a few days back, the new electric De Lorean was announced.

"Now we are working with electric-car startup Epic EV to put an all-electric DMC-12 into production by 2013" was the announcement on the De Lorean web site. The three-wheeled Epic EV just happens to use a 200 bhp+ electric motor too.

The Orginal
One of the original De Lorean machines used in the shooting of the "Back to the future" film franchise is to go under the hammer at an auction in December. The car is expected to fetch in the ballpark of $400,000-$600,000.

Check out the video of the new Epic EV below.

Paper Thin Solar Cells - Folding a solar cell into an airplane

MIT's been making steady progress on creating solar cell-coated paper since 2010, and are excited to report the current findings of the project.

What looks and feels like an ordinary sheet of paper with a fine layer of coloured rectangles, is no ordinary piece of paper. Once connected to a couple of wires, it instantly generates electricity from solar power.

Additionally, the technology is almost as cheap and easy as printing a family snapshot from an inkjet printer. You can even fold it, slip it in your pocket, then unfold it again for later use.



The printing process uses vapours at relatively low temperatures (less than 120C/ 248F), to transfer five fine layers of photovoltaic cells onto a piece of untreated paper, plastic or even fabric.

The process takes place in a vacuum chamber where the layers are sprayed onto the same sheet of paper in successive passes, "creating a vapor-deposition process that can be carried out inexpensively on a vast commercial scale," according to MIT.

During an experiment to test the durability of the solar cells, a team of MIT students printed the cells onto a sheet of PET plastic (a thinner version than what is commonly used for soda bottles) and folded and unfolded it 1,000 times.

Remarkably, there was no impact of each fold on the performance of the solar cells. In contrast, a commercially produced solar cell on the same PET plastic failed after the first fold.

"We have demonstrated quite thoroughly the robustness of this technology," says MIT Professor of Electrical Engineering Vladimir Bulović.

Due to the low weight of the paper or plastic, "we think we can fabricate scalable solar cells that can reach record-high watts-per-kilogram performance," he added. "For solar cells with such properties, a number of technological applications open up."

Furthermore, by laminating the solar paper, the researchers were able to demonstrate that the system can be protected from rain and wind, and thus easily used outdoors.

This achievement in itself could offer an economical solution to current solar energy systems that use glass or other expensive materials as a base.

YouTube - ‪BMW shows pre-production electric scooter‬‏

Don't be put off buy the odd paint job on this concept bike - that's the standard camouflage BMW and many other manufacturers use to conceal the final body shape of concept and pre-production test vehicles.

Under the skin, the E-Scooter looks to be a reasonably well designed but unremarkable electric maxi-scooter reminiscent of the Vectrix that more or less pioneered decent-sized electric motorcycles in the western world.

It's worth noting that in certain parts of Asia, electrics are almost as common as petrol scooters, but they travel at lower speeds and have shorter ranges than would be appealing to the U.S. market.

So what's changed since the Vectrix? Not an awful lot, on the surface of it. Vectrix chose a hub-mounted drive motor, BMW uses a chain drive and a motor that's built into the battery pack. Presumably BMW will be using Lithium based batteries as opposed to the Vectrix's old-school NiMH powerpack.

Range and top speed more or less match the Vectrix - the BMW will do more than 100 km/h (62 mph) and will travel more than 100 km (62 miles) on a charge if you go gentle on the throttle. But our recent experience testing the Zero Electric Supermoto taught us exactly how much of a difference your riding style can make to a modern electric's range figures.

Pootle it around at 50 km/h (can you actually pootle an electric?) and it feels like the battery will last forever. Sit at 100 km/h on a freeway and it's quite terrifying to watch as the battery bars disappear before your very eyes.

Regenerative braking will help keep a little more juice in the battery as you ride, but in general, as with most electrics, you plug the E-Scooter into the wall to charge it. A full charge from empty is over in about three hours, but you'll rarely run it all the way to empty.

Closest Black Hole is Closer to Earth Than Thought

Wow! Closest Black Hole is Closer to Earth Than Thought

Astronomers have accurately measured the distance between Earth and a particular black hole for the first time. And wow, is it close.

The researchers determined that the black hole V404 Cygni is located 7,800 light-years from Earth — or just slightly more than half the distance that was previously assumed.

That puts it relatively nearby to Earth, where the distance to the center of the galaxy is about 26,000 light-years, and the nearest star beyond the sun is a mere 4.2 light-years away.

The more accurate distance measurement will enable scientists to paint a better picture of how black holes evolve, the team says.

"For example, we hope to be able to answer the question as to whether there is a difference between black holes that evolve directly from the collapse of a star without a supernova and black holes that evolve via a supernova and a temporary intermediate star," said study team member Peter Jonker of SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research.

"We expect that the black holes in the last group can get a kick. Black holes formed in this way could then move through space faster."

The Gruesome Power of Raptor Talons

The most thorough study to date of raptor talons reveals their feet to be extraordinarily specialized hunting tools, perfectly suited to their gruesomely amazing killing strategies.

”Despite the ubiquity of raptors in terrestrial ecosystems, many aspects of their predatory behavior remain poorly understood,” wrote ornithologists in a paper published Wednesday in PLoS ONE.

“Surprisingly little is known about the morphology of raptor talons and how they are employed during feeding behavior.”

To get a better understanding, the researchers took detailed measurements of the talons from 24 bird of prey species, and linked them to literature on raptor hunting and 170 videos of attacks.

They describe how accipitrids, which include hawks and eagles, have two giant talons on their first and second toes. These give them a secure grip on struggling game that they like to eat alive, “so long as it does not protest too vigorously. In this prolonged and bloody scenario, prey eventually succumb to massive blood loss or organ failure, incurred during dismemberment.”

Meanwhile, the talons of owls, which don’t usually land a killing blow as they strike, are relatively short but strong, and one toe actually swivels backwards. That lets owls crush wounded quarry between two pairs of opposable talons. The animal is then swallowed whole.

Falcons are so skilled at disabling prey with a mid-air, high-speed strike that their talons are smaller than those of other raptors. They just don’t need them as much. Once they’ve landed, falcons “will quickly pluck the neck area and attempt to kill prey swiftly by breaking the neck with a bite attack.”

Osprey have large, curved talons, almost like fishhooks — which is appropriate because they specialize in catching fish, swooping down and hitting them just below the water’s surface.

In addition to expanding understanding of these much-loved birds, the findings could help researchers understand the birds’ dinosaur ancestors. The researchers are now studying how dinosaur claws reflected their hunting and feeding habits.

Image: (A) goshawk (B) red-tailed hawk (C) peregrine falcon (D) great grey owl (E) osprey./PLoS ONE