On this week's news update…

Space Tourism

Space tourism…

Deep Sea Mining

Deep sea mining…

Construction Robot

And a construction robot.

First up…

Going into space used to be only for astronauts. But that could be about to change.

Virgin Galactic have launched their last test flight of a spacecraft that can take tourists to the edge of space and back. The spacecraft consists of a plane that launches a rocket carrying passengers into the air. Once high enough, the rocket separates from the plane, taking passengers up to the edge of space where they experience a few minutes of weightlessness, before the rocket glides down and lands back on Earth.

Engineers are now gathering data and checking equipment from this final test flight and hope to begin commercial flights in the next few months.

Up next…

It’s Eco Zone.

deep sea mining

There’s a growing demand for precious minerals such as iron, which is used to make steel for constructing buildings. To meet this demand, minerals are being dug up from the ocean floor. This is called deep sea mining. However, scientists are concerned that deep sea mining could damage the local environment, which until now has been unchanged.

Clarion-Clipperton Zone

To learn more about the possible impacts, scientists are studying a potential mining site called the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, or CCZ. They have discovered that the CCZ is home to over 5,000 rare and previously undiscovered species, many of which have only been found in this one location, such as the abyssal sea cucumber, the gummy squirrel, and the “ping pong sponge.”

The scientists behind this study hope that by raising awareness of the rare species living in the CCZ ecosystem, they can encourage others to consider the effects mining can have on life in the deep sea.

And finally…

Building large-scale solar farms is one way to increase the production of green energy. However, they can take a long time to build.

autonomous

To speed things up, engineers have designed an autonomous construction robot that does not need a human driver. Instead, it is operated remotely. The robot is designed to install large steel beams called solar piles. These beams are driven into the ground and act as the foundation for solar panels. Installing solar piles usually involves a lot of heavy lifting by people, making it a slow and sometimes dangerous process. However, the robot can carry 200 solar piles at a time and install one in just 73 seconds. That’s over three times faster than current methods!

The engineers hope that the autonomous construction robot will speed up the installation of solar farms for a much greener future.

That's all for this week. We'll see you next time!