Short Takes – 5-27-25

Empyreum, Italy’s new satellite platform for the constellation era. Spacenews.com interview. Pull quote: “Importantly, Empyreum is constellation-ready. Each satellite comes pre-integrated with optical inter-satellite links, which we believe are essential for next-generation distributed architecture.”

There is unexpected chemistry going on in lithium deposits. ChemistryWorld.com article. Chem-Geek note. Pull quote: “‘When you talk about boron and pH the general understanding has been that boron speciation of water depends on pH – the relationship between boric acid and borate depends on the pH of the seawater,’ explains Avner Vengosh, an environmental quality professor at Duke who led the study. ‘But here we see the boron content controls the pH rather than the pH controlling the boron, and for chemists this could be intriguing,’ he tells Chemistry World. ‘It is unusual for someone who has understood one thing for 30 years and now understands that it’s the opposite.’”

NASA Is Shutting Down The International Space Station Sighting Website. HackADay.com article. Pull quote: “With smart phone apps hardly a replacement for a website of this type, it’s easy to see how the app-ification of the WWW continues, at the cost of us users.” Note: I would have spelled the made up word as “app-lification”, sounds better.