Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog

Category: space

Next-generation atomic clock successfully tested at sea

Adelaide University researchers have successfully tested a new type of portable atomic clock at sea for the first time, using technology that could help power the next generation of navigation, communications and scientific systems. The research team, from the Institute for Photonics and Advanced Sensing (IPAS), developed the highly precise device and trialed it aboard a vessel provided by the Royal Australian Navy in July 2024. They have reported their findings in a new paper published in the journal Optica.

Atomic clocks are the world’s most accurate timekeepers and are essential for technologies such as GPS navigation, telecommunications networks and radio astronomy. However, most high-performance atomic clocks operate in carefully controlled laboratory environments and are not designed to be easily transported or used in challenging real-world conditions. The newly developed device changes that.

Photonics researchers created a portable optical atomic clock that uses laser-cooled atoms of the element ytterbium to keep time with extreme precision. By cooling the atoms with lasers and measuring a very specific atomic transition, the clock can track time far more accurately than conventional systems.

Copper blasted into a million-degree plasma strips away 22 electrons in a flash before atoms recover

When laser flashes hit matter, electrons are knocked off their orbits around the atomic nuclei. This can generate extremely hot plasmas composed of charged particles—ions and electrons. Researchers at HZDR have now observed this ionization process in more detail than ever before. To do so, they combined two state-of-the-art lasers: the X-ray free-electron laser and the high-intensity optical laser ReLaX at the HED-HiBEF experiment station at the European XFEL in Schenefeld, near Hamburg. Their findings, published in Nature Communications, deliver fundamental insights into the interaction of high-energy lasers and matter under extreme conditions.

Ionization takes place extremely quickly—in picoseconds, within a few trillionths of seconds. In order to monitor this process in detail, laser pulses must be significantly shorter. “These are exactly the conditions provided by the two lasers that have pulse durations of just 25 and 30 femtoseconds—that is, trillionths of a second,” explains Dr. Lingen Huang, head of experimentation in HZDR’s Division of High-Energy Density.

Initially, an extremely intense flash of light strikes a delicate copper wire that is only about one-seventh the thickness of a human hair. The pulse intensity is approximately 250 trillion megawatts per square centimeter—concentrated on a tiny surface for an extremely short time. Values like this are otherwise achieved only under exceptional conditions, such as in extreme astrophysical environments like the immediate vicinity of neutron stars or during gamma-ray bursts.

EarthSpace 2026

Register now for 2026! A discussion of Earth and space on Earth Day, with Frank White, me, and other great guests!

EarthSpace 2026 brings together leaders, thinkers, and builders to explore one core idea: the future of Earth and the future of space are not separate conversations.

From climate solutions to space infrastructure, from policy to culture, the choices we make today will define how humanity lives on this planet—and beyond it.

This is not a passive webinar. It’s a focused, high-signal conversation with people actively shaping the frontier.

Space 18th SDG — A Side Event at COPUOS Legal SubCommittee — 16 April 2026

Space has become critical infrastructure for climate monitoring, disaster risk reduction, connectivity, navigation, education, and long-term planetary resilience. Even more important, space is an open horizon for new industrial development and settlement, starting with Earth orbit, the geo-lunar system, and the near-Earth asteroids. The Space 18th SDG initiative proposes a non-regulatory, enabling framework that strengthens the existing 17 SDGs by recognizing outer space as both an enabler of sustainable development and an environment requiring stewardship.
THE PANEL:
Prof. Sergio Marchisio, Space Law Expert, La Sapienza University, Rome, Italy.
Ms. Fikiswa Majola, Deputy Director Space Systems, Department of Science and Technology (DST) South Africa.
Prof. Guoyu Wang — Space Law Center, China National Space Administration.
Dr. Claire Nelson, The Future Forum, Giamaica.
Adriano V. Autino, SRI CEO & Founder.
Maria Antonietta Perino, Thales Alenia Space, Italy.
Stefano Antonetti, D-ORBIT SpA, Strategy Director, Italy.
Antonio Stark, iSpace, Japan.
MODERATES:
Dr. Gülin Dede, SRI Director of Relations, Chair of the Space 18th SDG Coalition.

Chang’e mission samples reveal how exogenous organic matter evolves on the moon

Elements essential to life, such as carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and sulfur, were “delivered” to Earth and the moon during the early stages of the solar system via asteroids and comets impacting their surfaces. These exogenous materials may have provided the chemical building blocks necessary for the origin and early evolution of life on Earth. But extensive geological activity and biological processes on Earth have largely erased the direct records of these early inputs on our planet.

In contrast, the moon, with its relatively limited geological activity, serves as a natural “time capsule,” making it easier to unravel the history and evolution of extraterrestrial organic matter.

A recent study has, for the first time, systematically identified multiple nitrogen-bearing organic species on the surfaces of lunar soil grains returned by China’s Chang’e-5 and Chang’e-6 missions. The research further reveals an evolutionary pathway defined by exogenous delivery, impact modification, and continuous solar wind processing.

/* */