The Nancy Grace Roman Telescope has exoplanet hunting moves. ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
August 31, 2026—NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Telescope launched to deep space. Plus, I'm back with two more clean energy projects that will carry us into the future, and physicists announce a new neutrino finding. Monday, let's go!
—Andrea Gawrylewski,
Chief Newsletter Editor
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Yesterday, at 7:26 A.M. EDT, the Nancy Grace Roman Telescope launched to space onboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The observatory is now on a three-month journey to a spot known as Lagrange Point 2, or L2, which is more than 900,000 miles away from Earth. | 4 min read
The Roman telescope will spend more than a quarter of its planned five-year primary mission observing a 10,000-light-year-wide region called the galactic bulge. It'll spot hundreds of millions of stars and countless exoplanets from microlensing events and "transits." | 4 min read
Julie McEnery, an astrophysicist who serves as senior project scientist for the Roman telescope mission, comes on our podcast to explain why scientists are so excited about this new space telescope and what it could teach us about the universe. | 14 min podcast
The backlash against technology in classrooms is growing: School districts are banning AI, states are limiting educational technology in classrooms, and Meta will set new “school mode” restrictions. | 5 min read
We sit down with astrobiologist Seven Rasmussen to discuss his latest book Cloudy with a Chance of Starships which examines the updated values of the Drake Equation—a calculation for determining our chances of discovering aliens. | 7 min read
Our obsession with self-improvement is stressing us out. Should we coin "moderation maxxing?" | 4 min read
Today, particle physicists announced they've detected the faintest neutrino collisions ever witnessed. | 2 min read
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Clean Energy Boom Part II
1. Deep-Sea Offshore Wind: Offshore winds are stronger and steadier than near-shore winds, so placing turbines far from coasts can deliver more power with better reliability than near-shore turbines. As much as 80 percent of potential wind power is in deep-sea locations. Plus, far offshore, the turbines also avoid the community complaints about visibility and their appearance that plague near-shore wind farms.
Name of project: Sanxia Linghang Hao (Three Gorges Pilot) platform
Location: China
Name of technology: Floating offshore wind turbine
Power generation: 16 megawatts
How it works: China’s Sanxia Linghang Hao offshore wind turbine, installed in May, is the largest single floating turbine in the world. It floats some 70 kilometers offshore in more than 50 meters of water atop a partly submerged platform, rather than a piling embedded in the seafloor as most offshore turbines are (that setup would be too expensive in such deep waters). In its mooring system, polyester cables and anchor chains act as springs that help to absorb the force of waves and wind. The turbine’s blades, with a tip height of 270 meters, are built to withstand winds up to 264 kilometers per hour, stronger than the winds of any supertyphoon.
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2. Energy from Air: For renewable energy to really succeed, we need a way to store energy for times when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing. So far such energy storage is allocated to lithium-ion batteries, which can only yield a few hours of storage before they increase the overall cost of the project. A few energy storage projects around the world funnel compressed air underground to be stored.
Name of project: Huai’an Salt Cavern
Location: China
Name of technology: Compressed air energy storage
Power generation: 600 megawatts
How it works: When demand for electricity is low, surplus energy generated by solar and wind farms can be used to power compressors that squeeze air to high pressures and pump it into underground caverns. Then, when demand rises, the pressurized air can be released to generate power. This technology, known as compressed air energy storage (CAES), dates to the late 1970s but never made it mainstream. So far, geology (the availability of the right kind of cavern) is the biggest limiting factor, though one permitted California project will expand into more common cave types.
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In Tetris, players try to efficiently pack a rectangular space with pieces that can have seven different shapes. As it happens, if you have exactly one of each of those seven possible pieces, then it is impossible to arrange them into a rectangle. But there is one piece you can discard that will allow you to make such an arrangement. Which piece must be discarded? Find any rectangular arrangement of the remaining six pieces. Just as in Tetris, you may rotate pieces but not reflect them. In other words, if the pieces were cutouts on a table, then you could slide them and spin them but never lift them off the table. Tip: you can determine the problematic piece in a principled way; it does not require trial and error. Click here for the solution.
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A fascinating graphical analysis of how the English language has changed since 1953. | The Pudding
Even though scientists don't quite know what causes hangovers, a whole industry of products has emerged to treat them. | The New Yorker
A solar flare in 2025 disrupted GPS systems and skewed their measurements by more than 10 meters (33 feet) in some places. | ScienceAlert
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It's been a true joy to write about some up-and-coming projects in energy research over the last week. This kind of science fills me with optimism, even as the broader climate and energy landscape can feel so dispiriting. Across the world, scientists and engineers are finding new ways to harness the energy around us—and reminding us that the future is not entirely written. If we let it, science can solve many of our problems, but it can also give us something just as important: reasons not to despair.
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Welcome to a new week of discovery! This newsletter is for you, so tell me what you think and what coverage you'd like to see by emailing: newsletters@sciam.com. See you tomorrow!
—Andrea Gawrylewski,
Chief Newsletter Editor
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