ETH News

Earth-observation satellites deliver data for a wealth of applications ¨C from monitoring climate change and documenting war crimes to planning disaster relief and assessing snow depth. ETH researchers are also big beneficiaries.

The coloured Cube has been around for 50 years. Its inventor, Ern? Rubik, celebrated his 80th birthday this year. At the invitation of the ETH Department of Mathematics, he spent some time in Zurich to discuss the fascination of the Rubik¡¯s Cube with researchers, students and children.

Researchers at ETH Zurich have been working with researchers from Ukraine and Germany to investigate how to rebuild Ukraine¡¯s destroyed energy infrastructure based on renewable energy. They have determined that solar and wind energy would quickly deliver a distributed power supply system and prevent corruption.

Most of a planet¡¯s water is generally not on its surface but hidden deep in its interior. This affects the potential habitability of distant worlds, as shown by model calculations of researchers at ETH Zurich and Princeton University.

When the Earth¡¯s ice masses melt, the way the planet rotates also changes. Researchers at ETH Zurich have now been able to show how climate change is altering the Earth¡¯s axis of rotation and the length of the day. The speed of rotation, which was hitherto mainly influenced by the moon, will now also depend much more on the climate.