【推荐1】One of the UK’s largest architecture firms, Foster + Partners, has revealed plans for a new “city within a city” in Vietnam. The new 290-acre district will be built around long rows of trees and greenery in Ho Chi Minh City, according to Foster + Partners in a press release.

Called “the Global City”, the project, including high-and low-rise residential buildings and public housing in addition to schools, a shopping mall and medical facilities, is set to complete within four years. Surrounded by two waterways, the community will comprise five different neighborhoods connected by a central park and wide streets, as well as a series of pedestrian (行人) bridges.

According to Toby Blunt, a senior partner at Foster + Partners, the firm took over the overall masterplan but was tasked with enhancing its combination with nature, while increasing pedestrian connectivity between the different neighborhoods.

Foster + Partners’ studio head Gerard Evenden emphasized the number of green spaces in the plan, including parks, courtyards and gardens. “The design seeks to strike a balance between biodiversity and human well-being,” he said, calling it a sustainable masterpian for the future.

The district’s design references the architectural traditions of Ho Chi Minh City, formerly noted as Saigon, through the use of brick and wood. The southeastern city enjoys fame for its wide mix of styles, from French Colonial (殖民时期的) landmarks like the Saigon Opera House, to concrete modernist apartment blocks and contemporary additions to the skyline, like the lotus flower-inspired Bitexco Tower.

Foster + Partners, founded by celebrated British architect Norman Foster, is famous for eye-catching projects including the Hearst Tower in New York.

“The Global City” is one of several futuristic masterplans that the firm has developed in recent years, with its team currently working on various planning projects designed to regenerate old urban areas or create new sustainable communities in densely populated cities.

【推荐1】A satellite the size of a microwave oven successfully broke free from its orbit around Earth on Monday and is headed toward the moon.

It’s been an unusual journey already for the CAPSTONE satellite. It was launched six days ago from New Zealand by the company Rocket Lab in one of their small rockets. With a small body, it will take another four months for the satellite to reach the moon, as it travels along using the smallest amount of energy. NASA put it the total amount of money spent on the mission at only $32.7 million. “For just some tens of millions of dollars, there is now a rocket and a spacecraft that can take you to the moon, to asteroids, to Venus, to Mars,” Rocket Lab founder Peter Beck said.

Beck said it was hard to put his excitement into words. “It’s probably going to take a while to sink in. Itˈs been a project that has taken us two-and-a-half years and is just difficult to perform,” he said. “So to see it all come together tonight and see that spacecraft on its way to the moon, it’s just absolutely impressive.”

If the rest of the mission is successful, the CAPSTONE satellite will send back vital information as the first to take a new orbit around the moon: a stretched-out egg shape with one end of the orbit passing close to the moon and the other far from it. Because of the shape, the satellite can travel a relatively short distance to enter the orbit, only 1000 miles away from the North Pole at its nearest pass to Earth every six and a half days. By taking advantage of the precise points between Earth and the Moon where the gravity from both is balanced out, the satellite can use less energy to maintain the orbit.

Eventually, NASA plans to build a small space station orbiting the moon that will provide extensive capabilities to support the Artemis program, a program which is a renaming of several earlier activities NASA was already undertaking to send humans to the moon. For the mission, NASA teamed up with two commercial companies.

【推荐2】When Jaime Hernandez saw the bright lines of light crossing the night sky while he was with friends in Sacramento, he grabbed his phone and started recording. Then his video was posted online with the words: “Crazy Fireworks, UFO?”

Tempting as it might be to blame aliens, the phenomenon likely has a straightforward explanation. “What you’re seeing is some actually very small objects releasing a lot of energy, very high up, traveling extremely fast,” says Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist. The lines were debris (碎片) of deserted communication equipment from the International Space Station (ISS) burning up as they re-entered the atmosphere.

The useless communication equipment was removed from ISS 2020. It’s been circling the Earth ever since, until its orbit got small enough that it re-entered the atmosphere and started to break apart while traveling at roughly 17, 000 miles per hour. This happens fairly frequently — however, humans may not always notice because the re-entry often occurs over the ocean. McDowell remarks.

Though it doesn’t always put on such a dazzling (耀眼的) show, space junk is increasingly becoming a problem. Trillions of pieces of “orbital debris” are traveling at high speeds around Earth, and the overall amount of space junk is growing, according to NASA. Though mostly tiny, it is moving so fast that it could damage a spacecraft or satellite on impact. “Even tiny paint dots can damage a spacecraft when traveling at these speeds, “according to NASA. Organizations track space debris, including the U. S. Department of Defense, to keep an eye out for any potentially dangerous crashes. The ISS can even perform debris avoidance operations to get out of the path of destructive space junk.

“Humanity needs to take responsibility for our behaviors in space now, not later,” said Melissa Quinn, a British space expert, in a statement.

【推荐3】The United Arab Emirates is a small country with big ambitions. Possibly, nowhere is clearer than in its space program, which has already sent two astronauts to space and has a satellite probing (探测) the atmosphere around Mars.

The country, over 50 years old, marked a milestone on Monday after Emirati astronaut Sultan Alneyadi returned to Earth in a SpaceX capsule following six months aboard the International Space Station. It was the longest space mission conducted by an Arab astronaut. Alneyadi also became the first person from the Middle East to conduct a spacewalk outside the ISS.

Alneyadi, 42, was part of a four-person NASA Crew-6 mission that was launched in March and returned to Earth after 186 days in space, Alneyadi’s time aboard the ISS highlights the country’s regional edge in space exploration.

“For me, it was a dream that had come true. It was really amazing, especially for my region,” Alneyadi said in a video conference a few days before leaving the ISS. “I felt that I’m responsible for showing what’s happening aboard the station. I think it’s a boost towards spreading the enthusiasm in our region.”

The father of six and longtime military engineer has been praised as a national hero in the UAE since his return to Earth.

The UAE’s president, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, referred to Alneyadi as “my son” in a post congratulating him on his achievement. He said, “Alneyadi’s journey shows we are capable of contributing positively to humanity’s scientific and civilized march.”

Alneyadi, a Ph. D. holder in information technology, beat out thousands of candidates in the UAE, passing numerous physical and psychological tests to ensure he could stand the physical and mental stress of being in space for many months. He then trained in Russia and the US to become an astronaut.

In one of his final social media posts from space, Alneyadi wrote, “Space, this is not a goodbye, I will see you later, whether on a new mission to the ISS or a farther destination.”