Launching large, rigid satellite dishes into orbit is an expensive and energy-hungry task. But what if those massive structures could start out flat—and then unfold or “grow” into their curved shapes ...

Think you know your Dyson spheres from your dark blobs? This cosmic crossword dives into the strangest, most mind-bending structures ever spotted — or imagined — in the universe. When you purchase ...

Aerospace undergrad Alex Kuehnle observes PhD student Ivan Wu in the composites laboratory at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Because it’s costly and cumbersome to transport large ...

Astronomers have observed enormous filaments of galaxies tied together with dark matter — the stuff scientists believe makes up 85 percent of the total mass of the universe — stretching across ...

The roots of material science in space began in the mid-20th century during the dawn of the space race. Image Credit: Indometeus/Wikimedia Commons To begin with, rockets, space shuttles, and ...

Continuous fiber 3D printer additively deposited fiber bundles generate the desired shape: (a) cone, (b) saddle, (c) parabolic dish. Source (All Images) | The Grainger College, University of Illinois ...

The rapid advancements in satellite technology have been inextricably bound up with the support provided by sophisticated space folding mechanisms. In addition, with the rapid progression of space ...

Humankind has the technology to go to space. Space architect Ariel Ekblaw says the bottleneck now is real estate: getting larger volumes of space stations in orbit. Her company is working on the ...

The first time that University of Oxford astronomer Lyla Jung saw the cosmic configuration on her monitor, she almost didn’t believe it was real. But it was—and Jung and her colleagues went on to ...

NASA once sent over 2,000 jellyfish into space to study how gravity affects biological development. The unusual experiment ...