Before the Concorde even began regular flights, protests over its sound levels caused the U.S. and many other countries to ban overland commercial supersonic flight. Those restrictions have stood for Keep reading
Tag: supersonic
Can Explosions Deflect Bullets?
In one of their most Mythbusters-like videos ever, the Slow Mo Guys ask: can an explosion deflect a bullet? To find out, they built out a system to trigger a Keep reading
Test Firing a Rocket Engine
Watching a rocket engine start up in slow motion is always fun. This Slow Mo Guys video shows a test fire of one of Firefly’s engines, which is capable of Keep reading
Sonic Booms and Urban Canyons
In the days of the Concorde — thus far the world’s only supersonic passenger jet — noise complaints from residents kept the aircraft from faster-than-sound travel except over the open Keep reading
Inside a Champagne Pop
When the cork pops on a bottle of champagne, the physics is akin to that of a missile launch in more ways than one. In this study, researchers used computational Keep reading
Re-Entry For X-Wings
Fans of sci-fi and fantasy have a long-standing tradition of exploring the physics and/or practicality of creations in their fandom, and Star Wars fans are no exception. Here engineers ask Keep reading
Landings Beyond Earth
With planning for manned and unmanned missions to the Moon, Mars, and many asteroids underway, engineers are using numerical simulations to understand how spacecraft thrusters interact with planetary surfaces. Most Keep reading
Plasma Shock Waves
Solar flares and coronal mass ejections send out shock waves that reverberate through our solar system. But shock waves through plasma – the ionized, high-energy particles making up the solar wind – do Keep reading
Astrophysical Turbulence
Subsonic turbulence – like the random and chaotic motions of air and water in our everyday lives – is something we have only a limited understanding of. Our knowledge of Keep reading
Seeing Shock Waves
This week NASA released the first-ever image of shock waves interacting between two supersonic aircraft. It’s a stunning effort, requiring a cutting-edge version of a century-old photographic technique and perfect Keep reading