India has announced plans to build its own space station by 2035, and carry out a human mission to the moon five years later. The country has ramped up its space program in recent years, becoming the first in the world to successfully land a spacecraft near the lunar south pole just this past August. Shortly after, in September, it launched a probe to study the sun. But, human spaceflight is new territory. Its upcoming Gaganyaan mission will be the first time India has sent astronauts to space using its own capabilities, and it’s now gearing up to start testing the vehicles that will support a human crew.

In a meeting led by India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the country’s space agency laid out a plan to achieve its first crewed launch in 2025 ahead of its eventual moon mission. It has a demonstration flight of its Crew Escape System Test Vehicle currently set for Oct 21, and will later send its launch vehicle on three test missions without humans on board. All in all, India is planning around 20 tests in the leadup to sending astronauts to space.

The country says it’s building a new launch pad and a next generation launch vehicle to make its admittedly “ambitious” other goals possible. In addition to establishing the Bharatiya Antariksha Station — or the Indian Space Station — by 2035 and launching a crewed mission to the moon by 2040, India also has its sights on interplanetary missions. Modi expressed interest in the development of a Venus orbiter and a Mars lander, too.

NASA’s Psyche spacecraft has blasted off and begun a six-year, 2.2-billion-mile journey to a peculiar asteroid. Astronomers have speculated that the space rock, also named Psyche, was once the partial core of a small planet in the early days of the Solar System. The seemingly iron- and nickel-rich asteroid may hold clues to the formation of planets, including our own.

On Friday, the uncrewed Psyche spacecraft lifted off at 10:19AM ET aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. After successfully jettisoning its fairings and separating from the rocket, ground controllers established two-way communication. Telemetry reports indicate it made it to space in good health. The mission had faced numerous delays before finally lifting off.

Psyche (the asteroid) rotates around the sun in a belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Researchers estimate it’s made of 30 to 60 percent nickel-iron core, allowing them a rare glimpse into a (possible) planetary core. “My best guess is that it’s more than half metal based on the data that we’ve got,” Lindy Elkins-Tanton, an Arizona State University professor working as the mission’s principal investigator, told The New York Times. “We’re really going to see a kind of new object, which means that a lot of our ideas are going to be proven wrong.”

NASA / Kim Shiflett

The spacecraft will take around six years to reach Psyche. At that point, NASA’s Psyche craft will orbit the asteroid for 26 months, studying it with various instruments. The craft will use cameras to get an up-close peek, a magnetometer to look for an ancient magnetic field, a gamma-ray spectrometer to detect high-energy gamma rays and neutrons and a radio antenna to map the space rock’s gravity.

“I am excited to see the treasure trove of science Psyche will unlock as NASA’s first mission to a metal world,” said Nicola Fox, a NASA Science Mission Directorate associate. “By studying asteroid Psyche, we hope to better understand our universe and our place in it, especially regarding the mysterious and impossible-to-reach metal core of our own home planet, Earth.”

The spacecraft will also test NASA’s deep space laser communications, an experimental communications method that could increase deep space bandwidth 100-fold over the current standard, radio waves. “It’s exciting to know that, in a few short weeks, Deep Space Optical Communications will begin sending data back to Earth to test this critical capability for the future of space exploration,” said Dr. Prasun Desai, Associate Administrator (Acting), STMD at NASA HQ. “The insights we learn will help us advance these innovative new technologies and, ultimately, pursue bolder goals in space.”

Earth’s orbit is getting crowded.

Last year, a record 2,409 objects were sent to orbit, the bulk of which were satellites settling into the increasingly cluttered region 1,200 miles above our planet’s surface known as low Earth orbit. Another 2,000-plus satellites have joined them so far this year, according to the UN’s Online Index of Objects Launched into Outer Space. As the presence of artificial objects in orbit grows, so too does the accumulation of debris, or space junk — and the risk of collisions. Dealing with existing waste and preventing its unchecked growth has become imperative, but it’s a problem that doesn’t have one simple solution.

Currently, the US Department of Defense’s Space Surveillance Network tracks more than 25,000 objects larger than 4 inches wide, most of which are concentrated in low Earth orbit, and there are an estimated millions of smaller objects still that are trickier to pinpoint. This includes everything from defunct satellites and spacecraft fragments to things as small as a paint chip, all of which can cause damage to other equipment due to the extreme speeds orbiting objects travel at. As yet, there have been no successful missions to remove extant debris from orbit. Proposals for removing this debris fall into two broad (and imperfect) categories: pushing them further from Earth into graveyard orbits where they pose less risk, or pulling them towards Earth where they'll deorbit and burn up in the atmosphere.

One such system is being developed and tested by Astroscale. The company, headquartered in Japan, demonstrated a magnetic capture-and-release tactic in 2021 with its ELSA-d mission, which simulated the strategy using an extra satellite it brought with it as mock debris. In a real-world scenario, its magnet would lock on to debris floating through space and drag it down to deorbit. Astroscale is selling its own docking plates that satellite operators can affix to their equipment ahead of launches, so it can easily be removed after a mission’s end. It's partnered with UK-based OneWeb to test how this will work, and plans to execute a full removal demonstration using one of the company's internet satellites in 2025 under the ELSA-M mission. 

Astroscale will also soon launch its ADRAS-J spacecraft in partnership with Japan’s space agency, JAXA, to demonstrate the ability to safely approach and inspect a real target ahead of future removal attempts. And, it's gearing up for a separate mission dubbed COSMIC that will use a robotic arm to grab objects in orbit, this time aiming for a pair of dead British satellites. That is expected to launch in the next few years.

The European Space Agency similarly commissioned Swiss startup ClearSpace for a junk removal mission that’s slated to launch in 2026. It’s expected to be the first mission to actually remove a real piece of debris from orbit, rather than perform a simulated capture. Ironically, the target of the ClearSpace-1 mission — an approximately 250-pound defunct rocket upper stage dubbed Vespa — was struck by untracked debris in August. The event created more debris, but ESA says it left the object intact and still in position for capture. ClearSpace will attempt to grab onto Vespa using a giant robotic claw, and the two will deorbit together, ending with them both burning up in Earth’s atmosphere.

Researchers have also experimented with the use of harpoons and nets to catch objects floating through space. The first mission to demonstrate these active debris removal techniques was one called RemoveDEBRIS, which launched in 2018. In 2018 and 2019, the craft successfully performed simulated debris capture by firing out a net and ensnaring a mock target, and by shooting a harpoon at a target to pierce and hook onto it. The company behind the project — Surrey Satellite Technology — does not appear to have any follow-up missions planned.

A cost-benefit analysis released last year by NASA noted that the benefit of space tugs like these could surpass their upfront costs in a matter of decades, but using space- or ground-based lasers to nudge debris out of orbit could break even much sooner. Lasers can move objects either through the momentum of their photons, or through a process called ablation, in which thrust is generated when the laser vaporizes bits of debris. The latter especially could be used for both large and small objects, either to deorbit debris or move trackable pieces out of another satellite’s way to avoid a collision.

“The process of laser ablation and photon pressure induces a change in velocity in the target debris, which ultimately alters the size and shape of its orbit,” said West Virginia University engineer Hang Woon Lee, who NASA recently granted up to three years of funding for research into this tactic. Doing so could mean “avoiding potentially catastrophic events,” he said. Using multiple lasers at once, instead of a single beam, could produce even greater effects.

Others yet are looking into means of recycling space debris, both to cut down on junk and to limit the reliance on reentries for its removal. While reentry is among the preferred disposal methods, it doesn’t come entirely without side effects of its own, which haven’t yet been well studied. Scientists have begun to speak up about the potential ozone-depleting effects of having large numbers of satellites disintegrate in Earth’s atmosphere, which releases pollutants like aluminum and nitrogen oxides. There are concerns about harmful pollution in the ocean, too, where spacecraft parts that don’t fully break apart end up.

NASA ODPO

Companies like Neumann Space and CisLunar Industries are developing the means to melt down metal parts from debris in space and reuse that material as fuel. The former’s Neumann Drive converts metal rods into plasma to generate thrust, and was just recently integrated into a satellite for the first time to begin tests of the system in space. CisLunar, on the other hand, is building the technology to create those metal fuel rods, along with other materials that could be repurposed to support other missions.

In the US, policymakers are starting to clamp down on commercial entities contributing to the pollution. The FCC handed out its first-ever fine for space debris in early October, and revised its guidelines last year for operations in low Earth orbit, with a new mandate that states satellites in LEO must be transitioned out of orbit within 5 years of completing their missions. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is also eyeing more stringent policies, and proposed a new rule in September that would require commercial launch operators to have a plan in place to remove rocket upper stages from orbit within set timelines, from 30 days to 25 years depending on the circumstances.

Thanks to the rapid acceleration of commercial space activities in the 2020s, we’ve seen an unprecedented number of new satellites arrive in orbit, and there are many more yet on their way. With more launch providers on the scene and innovation in reusable launch systems, led by SpaceX with its Falcon 9 rockets, launches have become less costly and more attainable. And competition to provide space-based internet connectivity by way of satellite “megaconstellations” is intensifying; SpaceX’s Starlink fleet is now at about 5,000 and counting, Amazon just launched the first two prototypes of its eventual 3,200 Project Kuiper satellites and OneWebb has placed over 600 satellites in orbit as of early 2023.

Scientists have long warned about the potentially catastrophic chain reactions that could be caused by space junk if it’s allowed to get out of hand. In the 1970s, NASA scientists Donald Kessler and Burton Cour-Palais argued in a paper that rampant debris could spur collisions that in turn create more debris, and cause more collisions. The risk of impacts between satellites increases, too, as more are pumped into orbit. We’ve already seen a glimpse of how disastrous that could be. In 2009, a commercial Iridium 33 satellite collided with a long-defunct Russian military satellite, Cosmos 2251, creating nearly 2,000 pieces of large debris.

Satellite destruction on a mass scale would have grave consequences both in space and on Earth. It could interfere with science activities and space exploration, and threaten the safety of astronauts aboard the International Space Station. It would also disrupt communications on the ground, removing major sources of internet and cellular connectivity, and GPS. Weather services we’ve long relied on would be interrupted.

More than half of all satellites that have ever been sent to orbit are still up there, a lot of them inactive. “Imagine how dangerous sailing the high seas would be if all the ships ever lost in history were still drifting on top of the water,” ESA Director General Jan Wörner said in 2019, when ClearSpace-1 was announced. “That is the current situation in orbit, and it cannot be allowed to continue.”

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft brought back samples from the asteroid Bennu and, in a livestream earlier today, NASA scientists showed us what it found hanging out in the great vastness of the cosmos. Simply put, the agency brought back a fairly large sample collection of various-sized rocks, dust particles and intermediate-sized particles. 

The big news here is that samples from the 4.5-billion-year-old asteroid contain not only carbon, which is to be expected, but also water. These are the building blocks of life on Earth and, likely, everywhere else, so this is a big deal.

NASA

“The OSIRIS-REx sample is the biggest carbon-rich asteroid sample ever delivered to Earth and will help scientists investigate the origins of life on our own planet for generations to come,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. 

While space rocks and dust may seem boring to those expecting a bevy of friendly aliens, there's still plenty of time to make more fantastic discoveries. These samples have only been on the planet since September 25 and initial studies just began. NASA says they'll continue to study the particles and will create a registry of some kind so scientists from other organizations can borrow portions for a looksie. Some samples are also heading to museums. 

The space agency says that the "secrets held within the rocks and dust from the asteroid will be studied for decades to come, offering insights into how our solar system was formed, how the precursor materials to life may have been seeded on Earth, and what precautions need to be taken to avoid asteroid collisions with our home planet."

Additionally, scientists were pleasantly surprised by the presence of "bonus asteroid material" covering the outside of the collector head, canister lid and base. Vanessa Wyche, director of NASA's Johnson Space Center, says that the agency is ready with additional specialized tools to "study this precious gift from the cosmos."

OSIRIS-REx actually grabbed the sample from Bennu all the way back in 2020. After that, the space vessel spent 18 months analyzing the asteroid from above before making its way back to orbit our favorite life-sustaining blue marble.

Bennu is an ancient relic of our solar system, as NASA says it was formed anywhere from 700 million to 2 billion years ago after breaking off a much larger asteroid that was originally formed over 4.5 billion years ago. Due to its older-than-Methuselah status, these Bennu fragments could actually give us a window into how life started on Earth, thanks to the carbon and water already discovered and any future findings.

This isn't the end for the curious spacecraft OSIRIS-REx. It's still out there, doing its best Jim Kirk impression. Next up? The craft's heading to an asteroid named Apophis under a new mission name, OSIRIS-APEX.

NASA is ready to share its findings of a sample taken from the 4.5 billion-year-old asteroid Bennu with the masses during a livestream at 11 AM ET today, October 11, on its YouTube channel. The reveal comes less than three weeks after the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft parachuted a capsule of Bennu's fragments into a Utah-based Department of Defense training site. NASA then transferred the sample to its Johnson Space Center in Houston for a complete analysis.

OSIRIS-REx set off on its $1.2 billion mission in September 2016, reaching the 1,650-foot wide asteroid two years later. In 2020, the spacecraft burrowed into Bennu much deeper than expected, collecting the largest asteroid surface sample to date. The goal was to bring at least 2.1 ounces back, and initial estimates put the collection at around 8.8 ounces. NASA should reveal the exact specifications and the quality of the substance during its livestream, as well as other interesting tidbits uncovered.

As for OSIRIS-REx, it already has a new name and mission. The now-dubbed OSIRIS-APEX is on its way to asteroid Apophis to examine the impact of a close encounter with Earth in 2029. NASA expects the asteroid to come within 20,000 miles of the Earth's surface — 90 percent closer than the moon.

Despite what Jules Verne may have you believe, it's not exactly possible to journey to the center of the Earth. As such, it's pretty difficult to gain a full understanding of what the core of our planet looks like. NASA is trying the next best thing. 

It's set to launch a mission to an asteroid that's understood to be largely made up of iron and nickel. In fact, this metal-rich asteroid, which is called 16 Psyche, is believed to once have been part of a planetary core. This is the first NASA mission to study an asteroid that has more metal than rock or ice.

Launch for the Psyche mission is targeted for 10:16AM ET on Thursday. The spacecraft will launch on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Kennedy Space Center in Florida (this will be the first of several NASA science missions in which the primary payload will launch on one of those rockets). You can watch a live stream of the launch below.

The Psyche spacecraft is around the size of a small van. As soon as it reaches the asteroid, it will start sending images of 16 Psyche back to Earth. It's equipped with a magnetometer, a gamma-ray and neutron spectrometer and a multispectral imager to study the asteroid. It will spend around two years snapping photos, mapping the asteroid's surface and collecting data to gain a better understanding of 16 Psyche’s composition.

The spacecraft, which is powered by solar electric propulsion, is expected to reach 16 Psyche (which is in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter) in July 2029. If NASA had been ready to launch the mission last year, as was previously the plan, it might have been able to reach 16 Psyche as early as 2026.

NASA understands that the 173-mile wide 16 Psyche asteroid may, in fact, not be an exposed core of a planetesimal, an early planetary building block. The agency says that it might instead be the "leftover piece of a completely different kind of iron-rich body that formed from metal-rich material somewhere in the solar system."

The spacecraft will have a second job to do. It will also test new laser communications tech from NASA JPL called Deep Space Optical Communications. This is said to be able to transfer data and images at least 10 times faster than conventional systems. The experiment will test how capable the system is of transmitting data at faster rates beyond the Moon. However, it won't be used to send back any Psyche mission data.

For the first couple decades of its existence, NASA was the epitome of an Old Boys Club; its astronaut ranks pulled exclusively from the Armed Services' test pilot programs which, at that time, were exclusively staffed by men. Glass ceilings weren't the only things broken when Sally Ride, Judy Resnik, Kathy Sullivan, Anna Fisher, Margaret "Rhea" Seddon and Shannon Lucid were admitted to the program in 1978 — numerous spaceflight systems had to be reassessed to accommodate a more diverse workforce. In The Six: The Untold Story of America’s First Women Astronauts, journalist Loren Grush chronicles the numerous trials and challenges these women faced — from institutional sexism to enduring survival training to navigating the personal pressures that the public life of an astronaut entails — in their efforts to reach orbit.

Scribner

Adapted from The Six: The Untold Story of America’s First Women Astronauts by Loren Grush. Copyright © 2023 by Loren Grush. Excerpted with permission by Scribner, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Above the Chisos Mountains sprawling across Big Bend National Park in West Texas, Kathy [Sullivan, PhD, third woman to fly in space and future head of the NOAA] sat in the back seat of NASA’s WB-57F reconnaissance aircraft as it climbed higher into the sky. The pilot, Jim Korkowski, kept his eye on the jet’s altimeter as they ascended. They’d just passed sixty thousand feet, and they weren’t done rising. It was a dizzyingly high altitude, but the plane was made to handle such extremes.

Inside the cockpit, both Kathy and Jim were prepared. They were fully outfitted in the air force’s high-altitude pressure suits. To the untrained observer, the gear looked almost like actual space suits. Each ensemble consisted of a bulky dark onesie, with thick gloves and a thick helmet. The combination was designed to apply pressure to the body as the high-altitude air thinned away and made it almost impossible for the human body to function.

The duo eventually reached their target height: 63,300 feet. At that altitude, their pressure suits were a matter of life and death. The surrounding air pressure was so low that their blood could start to boil if their bodies were left unprotected. But with the suits on, it was an uneventful research expedition. Kathy took images with a specialized infrared camera that could produce color photos, and she also scanned the distant terrain in various wavelengths of light.

They spent just an hour and a half over Big Bend, and the flight lasted just four hours in total. While it may have seemed a quick and easy flight, Kathy made history when she reached that final altitude above West Texas on July 1, 1979. In that moment, she flew higher than any woman ever had, setting an unofficial world aviation record.

The assignment to train with the WB-57 had scared her at first, but Kathy wound up loving those high-flying planes. “That was very fun, other than this little bit of vague concern that, ‘Hope this doesn’t mean I’m falling off the face of the Earth,’” Kathy said. The assignment took her on flights up north to Alaska and down south to Peru. As she’d hoped, she received full qualification to wear the air force’s pressure suits, becoming the first woman to do so. Soon, donning a full-body suit designed to keep her alive became second nature to her.

NASA officials had also sought her out to test a new piece of equipment they were developing for future Shuttle astronauts, one that would let people relieve themselves while in space. During the Apollo and Gemini eras, NASA developed a relatively complex apparatus for astronauts to pee in their flight suits. It was, in essence, a flexible rubber cuff that fit around the penis, which then attached to a collection bag. The condom-like cuffs came in “small,” “medium,” and “large” (though Michael Collins claimed the astronauts gave them their own terms: “extra large,” “immense,” and “unbelievable”). It was certainly not a foolproof system. Urine often escaped from beneath the sheath.

Cuffs certainly weren’t going to work once women entered the astronaut corps. While the Space Shuttle had a fancy new toilet for both men and women to use, the astronauts still needed some outlet for when they were strapped to their seats for hours, awaiting launch or reentry. And if one of the women was to do a spacewalk, she’d need some kind of device during those hours afloat. So, NASA engineers created the Disposable Absorption Containment Trunk (DACT). In its most basic form it was . . . a diaper. It was an easy fix in case astronauts needed to urinate while out of reach of the toilet. It was designed to absorb fecal matter, too, though the women probably opted to wait until they reached orbit for that.

Kathy was the best person to test it out. Often during her high-altitude flights, she’d be trapped in her pressure suit for hours on end, creating the perfect testing conditions to analyze the DACT’s durability. It worked like a charm. And although the first male Shuttle fliers stuck to the cuffs, eventually the DACT became standard equipment for everyone.

After accumulating hundreds of hours in these pressure suits, Kathy hoped to leverage her experience into a flight assignment, one that might let her take a walk outside the Space Shuttle one day. As luck would have it, she ran into Bruce McCandless II in the JSC gym one afternoon. He was the guy to know when it came to spacewalks. NASA officials had put him in charge of developing all the spacewalk procedures and protocols, and at times he seemed to live in the NASA pools. Plus, he was always conscripting one of Kathy’s classmates to do simulated runs with him in the tanks. Kathy wanted to be next. Projecting as much confidence as she could, she asked him to consider her for his next training run.

It worked. Bruce invited Kathy to accompany him to Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama to take a dive in the tank there. The two would be working on spacewalk techniques that might be used one day to assemble a space station. However, the Space Shuttle suits still weren’t ready to use yet. Kathy had to wear Apollo moonwalker Pete Conrad’s suit, just like Anna had done during her spacewalk simulations. But while the suit swallowed tiny Anna, it was just slightly too small for Kathy, by about an inch. When she put it on, the suit stabbed her shoulders, while parts of it seemed to dig into her chest and back. She tried to stand up and nearly passed out. It took all her strength to walk over to the pool before she flopped into the tank. In the simulated weightless environment, the pain immediately evaporated. But it was still a crucial lesson in space-suit sizes. The suits have to fit their wearers perfectly if the spacewalk is going to work. 

The session may have started off painfully, but once she began tinkering with tools and understanding how to maneuver her arms to shift the rest of her body, she was hooked. She loved spacewalking so much that she’d go on to do dozens more practice dives throughout training.

But it wasn’t enough to practice in the pool. She wanted to go orbital. 

NASA will give the public a look at the asteroid sample brought back to Earth by its OSIRIS-REx spacecraft next week. A livestream of the reveal is set for 11 AM ET on Wednesday, October 11. The capsule containing rocks and dust taken from the surface of the near-Earth asteroid “Bennu” touched down at a Department of Defense training site in the Utah desert on September 24, and scientists have since been at work making their initial analyses.

OSIRIS-REx grabbed its sample from Bennu back in 2020 and spent the subsequent year-and-a-half observing the asteroid from above, before starting to make its way back toward Earth in May 2021. After its dropoff last month, the canister was brought to Houston, Texas to be opened at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. OSIRIS-REx, on the other hand, is still in space, now heading to an asteroid called Apophis under a new mission name, OSIRIS-APEX.

Asteroid Bennu is estimated to be over 4.5 billion years old, meaning its materials could hold clues into the formation of the solar system and how the building blocks of life made it to Earth. And, to scientists’ delight, the mission managed to capture more material than anyone expected. “The very best ‘problem’ to have is that there is so much material, it’s taking longer than we expected to collect it,” said Christopher Sneadr, NASA’s deputy OSIRIS-REx curation lead. With the livestream coming up, we’ll soon know more about what they’ve found in that material so far.

Amazon's first satellite launch was a success, according to United Launch Alliance. The aerospace manufacturer's Atlas V rocket took the first two Project Kuiper satellites to low Earth orbit on Friday. The mission, which is named Protoflight, lifted off at 2:06PM ET from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. 

Amazon has been working on Project Kuiper, its Starlink-esque internet satellite initiative, for quite some time. It previously planned to launch the prototypes by the end of last year.

The company sees Protoflight as a key learning opportunity, giving it the chance to record real-world (or, more accurately, offworld) data from space and add that to findings from lab and field testing. Amazon expects to gain more insight into how the network will perform across ground and space. This is also a test of satellite processing, launch and mission operations. Once the mission is over, Amazon will actively deorbit both satellites before they burn up in the atmosphere.

“We’ve done extensive testing here in our lab and have a high degree of confidence in our satellite design, but there’s no substitute for on-orbit testing,” Rajeev Badyal, Project Kuiper’s vice president of technology, said. “This is Amazon’s first time putting satellites into space, and we’re going to learn an incredible amount regardless of how the mission unfolds.”

Amazon says the aim of Project Kuiper is to offer fast and affordable broadband to unserved and underserved communities across the world. It plans to deploy more than 3,200 satellites over the next six years after it obtained FCC approval, and the KuiperSat-1 and KuiperSat-2 prototypes are the first iterations. It expects to launch production satellites in the first half of 2024 and start beta tests with some customers by the end of next year.

If you missed the launch, you can watch a replay of the livestream below. The rocket launches at around 26:05 into the video.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (KVA) has chosen its 2023 Nobel Prize in Chemistry winners, and they’re all about quantum dots. The three researchers — Alexei I. Ekimov, Louis E. Brus and Moungi G. Bawendi — will share the honors for their contributions to nanotechnology.

Although quantum dots had been proposed theoretically earlier in the 20th century, this year’s trio of Nobel winners began verifying them experimentally. The nanoscale semiconductor particles exhibit quantum mechanical properties, glowing in different colors when exposed to light. “Quantum dots have many fascinating and unusual properties. Importantly, they have different colours depending on their size,” wrote Johan Åqvist, Chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, in a press release. The smaller the dot, the bluer its light is; the bigger the dot, the redder its light is. By changing their size, researchers can tune their colors, leading to various scientific advances.

The Nobel recipients’ work with quantum dots has led to progress in display technology (like QLED TVs and monitors), medical and biological imaging, solar cells, drug delivery and quantum computing (among other things). Researchers’ consensus is that we’re still only scratching the surface of quantum dots’ practical capabilities.

Ekimov, a solid-state physicist, was the first to experimentally discover quantum dots when he synthesized them in colored glass in 1981. Meanwhile, Brus proved their size-dependent effects in particles floating freely in a fluid. In the following decade, Bawendi spearheaded breakthroughs in the nanoparticles’ chemical production, leading to “almost perfect particles,” as the KVA’s press release described.

The three honorees will split (evenly) a prize of 11 million Swedish krona (US$998,515).