Carbon

Robots Fight for Gold, New Carbon Allotrope Created, and Record Black Hole – Science News Roundup (15–16 August 2025)

Space and Astronomy Medicine and Public Health Climate and Environment Physics and Chemistry Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Sources: NASA, University of Texas at Austin, University of Oxford, CURE (Cancer Updates), Scientific American, NASA JPL, The News International science.nasa.gov scitechdaily.com chem.ox.ac.uk curetoday.com scientificamerican.com scitechdaily.com thenews.com.pk.

16 August 2025

Scanning the Canopy: ESA’s Biomass Radar Craft Maps Global Forest Carbon with P‑Band Vision

Biomass was selected in May 2013 as ESA’s seventh Earth Explorer mission to quantify forest carbon from space. The mission uses a P-band synthetic aperture radar at ~435 MHz (about 70 cm wavelength) with a 12-meter mesh reflector deployed in orbit to penetrate canopies and sense trunks. It employs fully polarimetric SAR (HH, HV, VH, VV) and SAR tomography to produce three-dimensional maps of forest structure and above-ground biomass. Biomass launched on 29 April 2025 aboard a Vega-C rocket (flight VV26) into a 666 km sun-synchronous orbit, carrying a ~1.25-tonne observatory. The project aims for wall-to-wall global biomass maps, delivering

27 June 2025

Carbon Mapping · Climate Change · Forest Monitoring · Remote Sensing · Space Technology

Umbrella in Orbit: ESA’s BIOMASS Satellite Lifts Earth’s Green Veil, Revealing Hidden Carbon Stores and Jaw‑Dropping First Images

BIOMASS uses a fully polarimetric P-band SAR with a 70 cm wavelength to pierce through canopies and measure woody trunks where most forest carbon is stored. The 12-meter deployable reflector, shaped like an umbrella and built by L3Harris, directs radar pulses back to the sensor. The 1.25-tonne spacecraft was launched on 29 April 2025 aboard a Vega-C rocket from Kourou into a 666 km sun-synchronous orbit (flight VV26). The gold-colored reflector unfurled in orbit on 7 May 2025, marking a key commissioning milestone. First images show colour-coded maps of the Amazon, Indonesia, and the bedrock of the Sahara. By combining

24 June 2025

Carbon Cycle · Earth Observation · ESA · NYSE:LHX · Remote Sensing · Satellites