A new space telescope

This month on Newsdesk: a new space telescope, volunteers try living without clocks, and a wolf camera goes wild.

A new space telescope

For hundreds of years, telescopes have been used to stare at the stars. This year, a brand new telescope will be launched into space, allowing us to look further into the universe than ever before.

A giant golden mirror will enable the telescope to collect more light than current telescopes can gather. This will allow it enough light to observe astronomical phenomena far beyond our own Solar System.

The telescope will orbit the Sun around a million miles from the Earth. Once the telescope reaches its final destination, the mirror will unfold and the telescope will be ready to start surveying the stars.

More powerful than any previous telescope, the new telescope will enable astronomers to understand how stars and galaxies are created.

Volunteers try living without clocks

In southern France, an unusual research project called “deep time” is investigating how people behave when they have no way of knowing what time it is.

A group of volunteers spent forty days in a cave, with no daylight and no contact with the outside world. They also had no access to clocks, watches, or other timekeeping devices, making it difficult for them to structure their days.

However, the group soon found new ways to pass the time. They explored the cave and cooked meals together. Scientists monitored the volunteers’ sleeping patterns and interactions with each other, and recorded how their behaviour changed.

The researchers hope their findings will help people adapt to other extreme situations, such as long-haul space flights.

A wolf camera goes wild

Grey wolves once wandered huge areas of the United States, but due to habitat loss, they now only live in a few states across the country.

Minnesota is home to around 2,500 wolves, and researchers have spent several years monitoring their behaviour. Experts know that wolves spend the cold winter months hunting together in packs, and springtime sees wolves looking after their newborn pups.

Yet the behaviour of wolves during summer months is less understood. Wolves spend the summer hunting alone in dense woodland, making it harder to find and study them. However, researchers have recently attached a camera to one wolf's neck, allowing them to see exactly what it gets up to in the woods!

The recordings show the wolf exploring the forest, munching on a bone, and even catching a fish from a stream! Researchers hope this new footage will provide an insight into the mysterious world of lone wolves.

Learn more about how telescopes work by watching the Twig Film Telescopes.

For more great topical science content, visit Twig Science Reporter where you'll also find videos, transcripts and lesson support to accompany this article.