Technological Marvels of 2021
Let’s celebrate the end of the year in the Style of a Tech-enthusiast.
ASME IIEST Shibpur Student Section
Moving towards the new year, let’s spend a few minutes looking back at all the technological innovations and marvels of 2021 which at some point mesmerized us and at another point terrified us.
Solar Probe touches The Sun
On December 14, 2021, NASA officials revealed that the Parker Solar Probe has successfully pierced through the Sun’s outer atmosphere “the corona” and “touched” the star. The space probe spent hours collecting magnetic and solar particle data from the Alfvén critical surface — the point that marks the end of the Sun’s atmosphere.
The spacecraft is expected to get increasingly closer to the Sun in subsequent flybys. If all goes according to plan, sometime in 2024, the satellite will get to within 3.83 million miles of the Sun’s surface, closer than any previous spacecraft dispatched to study the star.
World’s biggest, most powerful telescope launched into space by NASA
The James Webb Space Telescope, named after James E. Webb has a 21 feet diameter, made up of 18 hexagonal mirrors. The telescope will be deployed near the Sun-Earth Lagrange Point, about 1.5 million kilometers from Earth. After a delay of around 14 years, it lifted off on an Ariane 5 rocket on 25 December 2021.
Operating on a temperature of around 50 K, JWST is designed primarily for near-infrared astronomy, but can also see orange and red visible light and the mid-infrared region, depending on the instrument. It is said that JWST can see around 100 million years after the Big Bang and is focused on learning the formation of stars and galaxies. The 10 billion dollar mission, will reach the L2 point in a month and then take another 5 months before it’s ready for operations. The telescope has been primarily made by Northrop Grumman and will be operated by Space Telescope Science Institute.
Using only light, UNSW engineers have illustrated a new technique to enable 3D printed plastic to repair itself at room temperature.
Professor Cyrille Boyer and his team, Dr. Nathaniel Corrigan and Mr. Michael Zhang, in the UNSW School of Chemical Engineering have shown that the addition of “special powder” to the liquid resin used in the printing process can later assist with making quick and easy repairs to the material break.
This can be done very simply by shining standard LED lights on the printed plastic for around one hour which causes a chemical reaction and fusion of the two broken pieces.
The entire process actually makes the repaired plastic even stronger than it was before it was damaged, and it is hoped that further development and commercialization of the technique will help to reduce chemical waste in the future.
Taste the TV
A Japanese professor has developed a prototype lickable TV screen that can imitate food flavors and allows you to taste the food shown on the display. It’s another step towards creating a multi-sensory viewing experience. The device, called Taste the TV (TTTV), uses a carousel of 10 flavor canisters that spray in combination to create the taste of a particular food. The flavor sample then rolls on hygienic film over a flat TV screen for the viewer to try.
In the COVID-19 era, this kind of technology can enhance the way people connect and interact with the outside world.
Robots that can reproduce
After creating the world’s first living robots, United States-based scientists have discovered that now they can reproduce in a way different from any plant or animal. Scientists have called Xenobots “the first-ever, self-replicating living robots.”
The tiny organisms were unveiled in 2020, after a group of scientists at the University of Vermont, Tufts University, and Harvard University’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering found that they could move, work together in groups and self-heal, the report stated.
Xenobots are sized less than a millimeter, created from the stem cells of the African clawed frog — scientifically known as Xenopus laevis — from where it derives the name. The scientists believe that the new discovery could serve fruitful in the medical field.
Facebook’s name changed to Meta to emphasize Metaverse.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced on 28th October that the corporate name of the social media platform will change to “Meta,” to emphasize its “metaverse” vision.
What Is A Metaverse?
Simply put, a Metaverse is a digital space represented by digital representations of people, places, and things. In other words, it’s a “digital world” with real people represented by digital objects.
In many ways, Microsoft Teams or Zoom is already a form of a Metaverse. You are “there” in the room, but you may be a static image, an avatar, or a live video. So Metaverse is a broader context for “bringing people together.”
DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test)
On November 24, 2021. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, launched a new mission to redirect a pair of Asteroids on their orbit. This will prove that when we have an imminent threat of asteroid impact, we have a method to redirect the asteroid from their collision course to earth. The DART spacecraft will take a swing at Dimorphos (The asteroid) in September of 2022.
It will be an important step in the defense of our planetary system in case of an Asteroid impact.
Space Tourism
Space tourism comes as a major achievement for the year 2021. There was a race of becoming the first space tourist between Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos but was actually bagged by Richard Branson, with Virgin Galactic becoming the first successful space tourism company to reach the space. Virgin Galactic, SpaceX, Blue Origin, Boeing are some of the big names in the race.
Space tourism can be a great opportunity for space enthusiasts and those who don’t have acrophobia, to see the beauty of our planet just like the astronauts see it.
Just a space flight is not where we want to stop when we say tourism, the Gateway Foundation has already announced its plans to construct Voyager Station, the first space hotel by 2027. It will be a rotating station, with a capacity of 440 people at once.
Currently, the cost of a ticket is more than ₹ 3 Crore, with efforts being made to make it available for the masses.
Oxygen on Mars!
NASA’s Perseverance rover with the help of a device called MOXIE successfully converted some of the Martian atmosphere, which is composed mostly of carbon dioxide, into oxygen.
Martian air was drawn into the device through a filter, and a mechanical pump compressed it down to Earth-like settings, forwarding carbon dioxide to the electrolysis system. The carbon dioxide was heated to about 800 °C (MOXIE itself can withstand this temperature by the heat-resistant nickel alloy parts and a lightweight aerogel that traps heat inside). The gas separates into oxygen and carbon monoxide, and MOXIE isolates the oxygen to a different chamber, where the oxygen ions recombine. The carbon monoxide was released, and we were left with oxygen.
It generated about 5.4 grams of oxygen in one hour. MOXIE has a lot of work to do but as of now the results from this technology demonstration are full of promises.
3D printed Rockets
For a traditional rocket 1000s of parts have to be individually manufactured and clubbed, but with a 3D printed machine, all those parts can be printed at once, having the highest efficiency since they are already fitted with extreme precision. Agnikul was the first Indian space startup to enter into a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) with the Department of Space (DoS) under the newly established Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe). Skyroot Aerospace also revealed their fully 3D printer cryogenic Rocket called Dhawan-I. This shows us that, 3D-printed rockets may not be too far in the future.
The brain linking wirelessly with a computer
Scientists at Brown University fully connected a human brain to a computer via a transmitter device. Trial participants with paralysis were able to move robotic limbs by simply imagining their movements.
Most renewable year ever
The International Energy Agency (IEA) in December revealed that with around 290 GW of renewable energy generation installations globally, 2021 became renewable energy’s biggest year ever.
Solar PV remains the powerhouse of growth in renewable electricity, with its capacity additions forecast to increase by 17% in 2021 to a new record of almost 160 GW. In the same time frame, onshore wind additions are set to be almost one-quarter higher on average than during the 2015–20 period. Total offshore wind capacity is forecast to more than triple by 2026.
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