Hello, and welcome to The Edge, the newsletter that brings you groundbreaking stories from the frontiers of technology and science.
We’ve got some great stories for you today including new projects at camp SpaceX, HTC’s first 5G phone and black holes shooting jets at nearly the speed of light. For today’s Start-up Stories we’ll be talking about Rocket Labs. As always, we’ve added extra stories under each article should you find yourself in a curious state of mind.
HTC joins the 5G train
Image credit: HTC
HTC U20 5G is official, and it’s the company’s first 5G phone
HTC was once one of the biggest players in the Android smartphone market. The creators of the legendary HTC One M8 have fallen off the radar a bit though, as other smartphone manufacturers have taken centre stage. Now, HTC have launched two new handsets, both of which look like great midrange phones.
The HTC U20 5G is HTC’s first 5G handset and, while it’s a midrange handset, there’s plenty of reasons to consider it if you want to get on board with 5G. The U20 5G sports a Snapdragon 765G chipset, a 6.8-inch FHD+ LCD screen, 256GB of storage, 8GB of RAM, Android 10, a microSD slot and a 5,000mAh battery. The phone also comes with a quad-lens rear camera setup featuring a 48MP f/1.8 main sensor, an 8MP f/2.2 wide-angle sensor, a 2MP f/2.4 depth sensor and a 2MP f/2.4 macro sensor (for clarification, f/x.x is how lens aperture is measured). There’s also a 32MP front-facing camera and a fingerprint scanner on the back of the phone.
Alongside the U20 5G is the newest 4G offering from HTC, the HTC Desire 20 Pro. The phone comes with a 6.5-inch FHD+ LCD screen and a Snapdragon 665 chipset. It also features 128GB of storage, 6GB of RAM, the same 5,000mAh battery and quad-lens rear camera setup as the U20 5G, a microSD slot, Android 10 and a 25MP camera on the front. Prices for the phones have not been released anywhere yet and, so far, Taiwan is the only confirmed country where the phones will be launched. Our fingers are crossed for a more widespread release sometime this year.
What happened to HTC?
Black holes and light speed (almost)
Image credit: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss
Black hole caught spewing jets into space at nearly the speed of light
NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory has captured the moment a black hole spewed gassy material at nearly the speed of light.
Specifically, the outburst came from the black hole and its companion star, which form the binary system known as MAXI J1820+070. The system is 10,000 light years from Earth, which is relatively close at the cosmic scale. The massive gravity of the black hole sucks in material from the star, forming an accretion disk. This produces a bright, X-ray emitting sphere of gas, some of which falls back into the black hole. However, some of it gets fired out into space from the black hole, nearly at the speed of light.
At first glance, the northern jet of gas seems to be moving at 60% the speed of light. The southern one appears to be moving at 160% the speed of light, which is impossible. NASA explains that this is due to something known as ‘superlimunal motion’. Superluminal motion occurs when an object travels towards us almost as quickly as the light it generates, causing an illusion of the object moving faster than light. In reality, both jets are moving faster than 80% of the speed of light, but obviously not 100%. These findings, as well as further research into binary systems containing black holes and companion stars, could provide information about how these jets are formed and how they interact with their surroundings.
You and black holes
SpaceX: now hiring
Image credit: SpaceX/Elon Musk
Elon Musk: SpaceX Building Floating Spaceports for Moon, Mars Launches
Want to work SpaceX? Now might be your chance, as SpaceX are looking to hire an Offshore Operations Engineer in Brownsville, Texas, which is close to their Boca Chica, Texas launch site. The job listing was spotted online by a SpaceX enthusiast.
Musk was quick to tweet that the job listing was legit, and explains why they’re looking for someone to fill the position. According to Musk, “SpaceX is building floating, superheavy-class spaceports for Mars, moon & hypersonic travel around Earth”. Early animations of SpaceX’s upcoming Starship, pictured above, show that offshore landing pads will factor into the mix.
Most of these spaceports will need to be around 20 miles offshore to make noise levels bearable, especially for daily, point to point flights on Earth, another planned use for Starship. Musk’s Boring Company is working on digging underwater tunnels that could reach the floating platforms, possibly incorporating hyperloop transportation.
Travelling to Mars isn’t without its challenges
3D printed ears - yep, you read that right
Image credit: SingularityHub
Scientists 3D Printed Ears Inside Living Mice Using Light
Tissue engineering has taken a massive step forward, this time using light to 3D print ears on mice. We’re not kidding.
Using only bioink and light, the scientists behind the breakthrough were able to print a human ear-like structure under the skin of mice. Using a healthy ear as a template, they 3D printer a mirror image of the ear, tissue layer by tissue layer, directly onto the back of a mouse, without a single surgical cut being made. While the research itself is a bit eerie, it has massive implications for the future of surgery. The technology, known as digital light processing (DLP)-based 3D bioprinting, makes possible the building or rebuilding of tissue layers without requiring invasive surgery. Ultimately, this means that surface tissue defects, like those caused by injury or genetics, could by fixed without surgery.
Everything you need to know about 3D printing
Start-up Stories
Rocket Labs
Image credit: TechCrunch
Rocket Labs was founded in New Zealand in 2006. The company provides frequent and reliable access for students, scientists and companies to get their ideas into space. To do this, they use launch vehicles like their ‘Electron Rocket’.
With 11 commercial flights overall, it launched its first 2020 payload from New Zealand earlier this year. It has also launched 53 satellites so far.