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YEEUCK!
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The Dark
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Hidden oceans &
methane cliffs on
a dwarf planet
1ST HUMAN IN SPACE
CLIMATE RINGS &
BUSHFIRE MANAGEMENT
The super-powers of the
Australian Synchrotron
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ENGINEERING WONDERS SCTOORVYER
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828 metres of steel and glass rise above
the former fishing village of Dubai.
But the world’s highest building,
t
Burj Khalifa, could never have been
built were it not for four brilliant
n
engineers and one disastrous fire.
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22 37
SN S
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SCI BL
S U THE DARK SIDE OF PLUTO PAIN – AND WHY WE NEED IT
IN P
A
I Astronomers have never thought much of dark, frozen Pluto Without pain, our ancestors wouldn’t have known when to
L
A – until images from the New Horizons probe revealed rest an injury. Our genes reveal the history of human pain –
R
organic matter and a possible underground ocean. and some of us may have inherited Neanderthal sensitivity.
T
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MEGAPIXEL SPACE WALK
Reception staff: antenna
installed at 400km altitude
Astronaut Mike Hopkins needed to take
a space walk with a colleague to install
the International Space Station’s new antenna.
Named ColKa, it is the size of a refrigerator, so the
space station’s robotic arm carries it to the required
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Then NASA’s mission control in Houston guides the
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is providing the space station with its first direct
high-speed link to Europe via satellites.
Photo // NASA
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MEGAPIXEL GLACIER EXPEDITION
Tunnel vision: geologists
venture into frozen cave
The chasm drops vertically into the glacier’s
interior, the shaft produced by meltwater
flowing down from the surface of a Swiss glacier.
By day, water roars through the space within the ice,
but at night it freezes, allowing geologists to study
the glacier’s formation. The meltwater functions as
a lubricant that influences the ice’s motion across
the ground below. Many glaciers are retreating due
to climate change, and studies of their interiors
provide important information about deglaciation.
Photo // Robbie Shone
8 | SCIENCE ILLUSTRATED
