Satellites are making the night sky brighter — as a launch site, New Zealand has a duty to combat light pollution

This article was originally published in The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Space.com’s Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. New Zealand’s space sector has been developing rapidly since the first rocket lifted off in 2017. It now contributes about NZ$1.7 billion in revenue, with plans to grow to $10 billion by 2030. Last year, New Zealand hosted seven rocket launches, all by the US-listed but local company Rocket Lab. It was in response to Rocket Lab’s initial proposal for a launch site that New Zealand developed a regulatory system from scratch in less than two years…

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Stick to the shade in new extended ‘Dune: Awakening’ gameplay trailer (video)

Dune: Awakening – Gamescom Gameplay Presentation – YouTube Watch On “Your journey begins here, in the desert. Find the Fremen. Wake the Sleeper” It might have felt like we were all living on Arrakis this past July with the relentless scorching heat. Rest assured that cooler temperatures are rapidly arriving, but not for that storied sci-fi destination commonly known as Dune. Folding space back to that desolate planet where the spice Melange is harvested and water is held sacred, a new 27-minute gameplay trailer for Funcom’s upcoming “Dune: Awakening” was…

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‘Unbreakable’ quantum communication closer to reality thanks to new, exceptionally bright photons

Scientists have created an “exceptionally bright” light source that can generate quantum-entangled photons (particles of light) which could be used to securely transmit data in a future high-speed quantum communications network. A future quantum internet could transmit information using pairs of entangled photons — meaning the particles share information over time and space regardless of distance. Based on the weird laws of quantum mechanics, information encoded into these entangled photons can be transferred at high speeds while their “quantum coherence” — a state in which the particles are entangled —…

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