For decades, wind power has relied on a familiar formula: enormous towers, vast concrete foundations and specialised heavy-lift equipment capable of transporting and assembling components that can weigh hundreds of tonnes. While effective, these requirements have limited where wind turbines can be deployed and increased both costs and environmental impacts. Now, a new generation of…

A Soviet spacecraft designed to land on Venus in 1972 finally completed its journey more than half a century later, though not in the way its builders intended. Kosmos 482, part of the Soviet Union’s ambitious Venera programme, was supposed to explore the Solar System’s hottest planet. Instead, a rocket malfunction left the spacecraft trapped…