As smoke from hundreds of burning wildfires spread across Canada and the United States, the first three operational satellites in the Google-backed FireSat program successfully launched into orbit. The satellites will begin providing wildfire detection capable of spotting even small fires in the United States, Australia, and Europe before the end of the year.
The launch of the microsatellites aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on July 7, 2026 marks a transition to “initial operational capability” for the FireSat constellation managed by the nonprofit Earth Fire Alliance. After a three-month testing period, the three satellites will begin actively providing data to fire agencies while covering every fire-prone region on Earth at least twice per day.
FireSat represents the first satellite constellation purpose-built for detecting wildfires, including spotting smaller fires that other satellites may miss. The satellites were designed by California-based satellite manufacturer Muon Space and have received over $15 million from Google to support initial deployment. Other notable financial supporters include the Bezos Earth Fund that committed $26 million.
Thousands of fossilized bones from a Cretaceous-period bonebed in Wyoming, the United States, offer rare physical evidence that Tyrannosaurus rex fed on the carcasses of a duck-billed dinosaur species called Edmontosaurus annectens.
Did you know that the space shuttle once launched the Statue of Liberty into space?
In fact, there were two "Lady Liberties" on board Discovery when it lifted off on its fourth flight in April 1985. To be fair, each statue was only 15 inches tall (38.1 centimeters), but they were also each made of copper that was removed from the full-size statue during its then-still-ongoing restoration.
After the weeklong STS-51D mission was over, one of the space-flown statues was placed on display, and the other was melted down to create copper seals, which were then sold to the public by the Statue of Liberty Ellis Island Centennial Commission.
An unusual new type of quantum state has been revealed by theoretical physicists, which they say demonstrates a critical new phase of matter that arises from pushing particles to their limits.
Known as “fractional Fermi seas,” this class of quantum states can be created on demand by exciting quantum particles beyond their typical equilibrium states, as detailed in new research published in Physical Review Letters, based on findings by theoretical physicist Alvise Bastianello of CNRS and Université Paris-Dauphine, working in collaboration with the Nägerl group.
To achieve this, the team relied on ultracold cesium atoms, which they were able to successfully confine to a single dimension. Then, by manipulating the strength of the interactions between these particles, the unusual quantum state they induced produced characteristics the team says are far beyond predicted models.
Going Beyond What Models Predict
Specifically, the findings reveal characteristics that extend well beyond what physicists call the Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid theory, a well-characterized model that describes the way electrons or other fermions operate within a one-dimensional conductor, such as carbon nanotubes that restrict their movement to a single dimension.
“Fermions, for instance, stack neatly into the available energy states to form the so-called ‘Fermi sea’,” according to researcher Alvise Bastianello, who notes that quantum particles generally behave predictably at low temperatures and follow very specific rules in terms of their self-arrangement.
“But what happens if one forces interacting atoms to continuously cycle through extreme conditions, smoothly shifting them from strongly repelling each other to strongly attracting each other?” he asks.
To address this, the team implemented experiments where they created conditions that repeated this interaction cycle, intentionally forcing atoms from their typical ground state into more highly excited ones. Despite their excited state, the atoms still maintained a surprising degree of organization as the so-called “fractional Fermi sea” was induced.
“Instead of simply heating the system, the interaction cycle reorganizes the atoms into a new many-body state,” according to lead author Yi Zeng, who added that the team’s observations provided “a controlled way to explore quantum matter beyond the usual equilibrium paradigms.”
Rise of the “Super-Fermions”
One of the team’s key findings had been the odd conditions they observed within the newly created state, which include what are characterized as Friedel oscillations, a term for the ripples the team observed as anticipated based on mathematical correlations between particles. Additionally, the team says they observed decay behavior that was present across all levels of the repulsive interactions between particles.
“This state is highly excited, but it is not random,” according to team leader Hanns-Christoph Nägerl. This is significant, he says, since the state the research team achieved is markedly different from what Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid theory predicts.
“It has a hidden order that becomes visible in its correlations,” Nägerl said of the team’s unique discovery, adding that they have not yet determined the name they plan to give these newly characterized quasiparticles, although ‘super-Fermions’ is a possible contender.
Evidence of Exotic States
Also of key importance, the team believes these specific signatures could point to the presence of a new and exotic type of critical phase which has never been previously recognized, and which could point to promising new approaches to studying quantum mysteries with the help of cold atom simulation technologies.
Presently, the team says a companion paper is in the works, which elaborates on the team’s experiments and the creation of fractional Fermi seas through quantum simulations.
“The discovery of fractional Fermi seas shows how far we can push quantum simulation: not only reproducing known models, but creating and probing states that go beyond established paradigms,” Nägerl concluded.
Micah Hanks is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of The Debrief. A longtime reporter on science, defense, and technology with a focus on space and astronomy, he can be reached atmicah@thedebrief.org. Follow him on X @MicahHanks, and at micahhanks.com.
Tesla, Sunrun and Renew Home plan to tap solar panels, batteries, thermostats and other devices installed in millions of homes to meet the energy demands of artificial intelligence.
Installation of a Sunrun solar panel on a roof in California. Sunrun is working with Tesla and Renew Home to use home energy devices to help data centers get online faster.
Tesla, Sunrun and Renew Home plan to tap solar panels, batteries, thermostats and other devices installed in millions of homes to meet the energy demands of artificial intelligence.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration headquarters in Silver Spring, Md. The new site is an effort to preserve NOAA work previously available at climate.gov.
The federal government wants to help utilities buy large components for up to 10 large nuclear reactors. It’s unclear which, if any, companies might participate.
The Vogtle nuclear power plant in Georgia is the only one with AP1000 reactors in the U.S. They generate enough electricity to power 1 million homes, but they took 15 years to build and cost $35 billion, double the initial estimates.
The federal government wants to help utilities buy large components for up to 10 large nuclear reactors. It’s unclear which, if any, companies might participate.
"This is not Winston Churchill, that I can tell you," Trump said of Starmer as he hammered the exiting PM over immigration, "windmills" and not being there when he needed him in Iran.
Smaller U.S. oil producers are starting to drill more wells, but big companies like Exxon Mobil and Chevron have said they are not changing their plans as a result of the war with Iran.
Paleontologists from the Field Museum of Natural History have described the fossilized remains of baby embolomeres, crocodile-like predators that prowled ancient rivers and swamps between 350 and 280 million years ago.
The preliminary U.S.-Iran deal temporarily waives restrictions that have limited the country’s oil sales and how much money it has been able to make from those exports.
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