Stevens researchers bring hypersonic flight one step closer to take off

A study suggests that building hypersonic planes won't demand a significantly different design approach

Stevens Institute of Technology

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Nicholaus Parziale says hypersonic planes may one day fly from Los Angeles to Sydney within an hour

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Credit: Stevens Institute of Technology

Hoboken, N.J., November 12, 2025 — If it were to become a reality, hypersonic flight, long the realm of science fiction, could revolutionize global travel, transforming day-long international flights into brief commutes no longer than a feature length movie. The duration of a long-haul route, such as Sydney to Los Angeles, might drop from 15 hours to just one. 

“It really shrinks the planet,” says Professor Nicholaus Parziale, whose research focuses on making such hypersonic flight a reality, and who is a recent recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers for his research into the fluid mechanics that affects high-speed flight. “It will make travel faster, easier and more enjoyable.”

Crossing half the planet in an hour may sound untenable, but such planes may be closer to reality than you think. Military planes already fly at double and triple the speed of sound, which engineers refer to as Mach 2 or Mach 3, where Mach 1 stands for the speed of sound or 760 miles per hour. To cover the distance from Los Angeles to Sydney in an hour the planes would need to fly at Mach 10 — ten times the speed of sound. What’s standing in the way of such ultra-fast planes becoming reality is the turbulence and heat they generate as they fly. 

There's a difference in how the air behaves around the aircraft at low speeds versus high speeds. Aerospace engineers have special terms for this phenomenon: incompressible and compressible flow. In incompressible flow, which occurs at low speeds (below about Mach 0.3 or 225 miles per hour), air density remains nearly constant, which simplifies airplane design. However, at higher speeds, especially above the speed of sound, it switches to compressible flow. “That’s because a gas can 'squish,'” explains Parziale, or, to put it in scientific terms, compress.

Compressing means that air density changes significantly due to variations in pressure and temperature, which affects how an aircraft flies. “Compressibility affects how the airflow goes around the body and that can change things like lift, drag, and thrust required to take off or stay airborne.” All of which is important for plane design.

Aerospace engineers have a pretty good idea how such airflow works with planes that fly below or close to the speed of sound — also known as "low Mach" numbers. To build hypersonic planes, they must understand how airflow works at greater Mach numbers — like five or ten times the speed of sound. And that remains a bit of an enigma, save for the so-called Morkovin’s hypothesis. 

Formulated by Mark Morkovin in mid-20th century, the hypothesis postulates that when air moves at Mach 5 or Mach 6, the turbulence behavior doesn't change all that much from slower speeds. Although air density and temperature change more in faster flows, the hypothesis states that the basic "choppy" motion of turbulence stays mostly the same. “Basically, the Morkovin’s hypothesis means that the way the turbulent air moves at low and high speeds isn’t that different,” says Parziale. “If the hypothesis is correct, it means that we don’t need a whole new way to understand turbulence at these higher speeds. We can use the same concepts we use for the slower flows.” That also means that hypersonic planes don’t need a significantly different design approach.

Yet, so far no one has been able to provide sufficient experimental evidence to support Morkovin’s hypothesis. That became the subject of Parziale’s new study, titled Hypersonic Turbulent Quantities in Support of Morkovin’s Hypothesis, which was published in Nature Communications, on November 12, 2025.

In the study, Parziale’s team used lasers to ionize a gas called krypton which is seeded into the air flowing inside a wind tunnel. That temporarily made krypton atoms form an initially-straight, glowing line. Then researchers used ultra high-resolution cameras to take pictures of how that fluorescent krypton line moves, bends, and twists through the wind tunnel’s air — akin to how a leaf swirls through the little eddies in a river. “As that line moves with the gas, you can see crinkles and structure in the flow, and from that, we can learn a lot about turbulence,” says Parziale, adding that he spent 11 years building that clever setup. “And what we found was that at Mach 6, the turbulence behavior is pretty close to the incompressible flow.” 

Early on, Parziale’s group was supported by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research Young Investigator Research Program (YIP) in 2016 and Office of Naval Research (ONR) YIP in 2020, with the current work being supported by ONR. 

Although the hypothesis isn’t fully confirmed yet, the study brings us one step closer to hypersonic flight because it suggests that planes don’t need an entirely new design to fly at hypersonic speeds. And that simplifies things.

“Today, we must use computers to design an airplane, and the computational resources to design a plane that will fly at Mach 6, simulating all the tiny, fine, little details would be impossible,” says Parziale. “The Morkovin’s hypothesis allows us to make simplifying assumptions so that the computational demands to design hypersonic vehicles can become more doable.”

The study findings also hold promise for changing how space transportation is done, Parziale explains. “If we can build planes that fly at hypersonic speed, we can also fly them into space, rather than launching rockets, which would make transportation to and from low Earth orbit easier,” he says. “It will be a game-changer for transportation not only on earth, but also in low orbit.”

About Stevens Institute of Technology
Stevens is a premier, private research university situated in Hoboken, New Jersey. Since our founding in 1870, technological innovation has been the hallmark of Stevens’ education and research. Within the university’s three schools and one college, more than 8,000 undergraduate and graduate students collaborate closely with faculty in an interdisciplinary, student-centric, entrepreneurial environment. Academic and research programs spanning business, computing, engineering, the arts and other disciplines actively advance the frontiers of science and leverage technology to confront our most pressing global challenges. The university continues to be consistently ranked among the nation’s leaders in career services, post-graduation salaries of alumni and return on tuition investment. 

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Journal

Nature Communications

DOI

10.1038/s41467-025-65398-4 

Article Title

Hypersonic Turbulent Quantities in Support of Morkovin’s Hypothesis

Article Publication Date

12-Nov-2025

 

Researchers uncover natural seepage of oil and gas off Northeast Greenland

New research led by Aarhus University has documented for the first time that gas hydrates are present on the Northeast Greenland shelf and are now exposed to a rapidly warming Arctic Ocean

Peer-Reviewed Publication

Aarhus University

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A large research study by an international team of scientists led by Christoph Böttner from Aarhus University shows clear evidence of extensive natural hydrocarbon seepage along the Northeast Greenland margin — one of the least explored continental margins on Earth. 

The new discoveries of widespread natural seepage and gas hydrates in NE Greenland represent a significant advance in our understanding of natural seepage across the Arctic. This is important in the light of rapidly changing climate in the Arctic and Antarctic.

“We now provide a detailed picture of the migration of oil and gas from deep beneath the seafloor in Northeast Greenland and their release into the ocean,” says Assistant Professor in Marine Seismic Sedimentology Christoph Böttner, lead author of the study, who conducted the work during his Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship at Aarhus University.

Valuable data on migration of gases

The research study combines new academic field studies in the waters off northeast Greenland with geoscientific data sets from previous industry expeditions. This has made it possible to capture in great detail the migration of gases from source to where they enter the sea.

“The wealth of data has given us new insights into how natural methane emissions contribute to the Arctic carbon cycle. It means we have now better means to distinguish between the seepage that has been going on for thousands of years and potential increased release we are seeing because of climate change and the rising sea temperatures,” says Christoph Böttner.

Northeast Greenland a pertinent location for climate research

The study, which has just been published in the scientific journal Nature Communications Earth & Environment [DOI: 10.1038/s43247-025-02932-8], is one of the first [cb1] to systematically map oil and gas seepage from the seafloor off northeast Greenland.

According to Christoph Böttner, northeast Greenland is a particularly interesting place because it is one of the least explored and most inaccessible regions on Earth. It is also a frontier of Arctic transformation under ongoing climate change. This makes it a unique laboratory for studying natural methane and oil seepage and its response to changes in the environment. 

Marit-Solveig Seidenkrantz, Professor at the Department of Geoscience at Aarhus University and co-author of the study, adds:

“Northeast Greenland plays an important role in climate research and in our understanding of the carbon cycle. Oil and gas seepage not only affect carbon fluxes in the ocean and atmosphere, but also life in the sea – from microorganisms to animals and mammals that have adapted to life in the icy waters.”

Climate change means that the Arctic is warming up to 4 times faster than the rest of the globe, making research in the area more urgent.

Frank Werner Jakobsen, co-author of the study and a PhD researcher at the Centre for Ice, Cryosphere, Carbon and Climate (iC3) at UiT The Arctic University of Norway in Tromsø, focusing on Northeast Greenland, explains:

“We provide the first evidence for gas hydrates on the shelf. Gas hydrates are ice-like structures that form from water and gas in the sediments under low temperatures and high pressure. Our study can help us understand whether future thawing could release even more greenhouse gases. At the same time, we are gaining new knowledge about how glaciers and ice, erosion and tectonics have shaped the seafloor and continental shelf in the Arctic over thousands of years.”

Mapping to be used in future climate models

The researchers have calculated that between 677 and 1,460 million tonnes of gas – equivalent to 0.5–1.1 billion tonnes of carbon – has been released into the sea since grounded ice retreated from the shelf around 15,000 years ago. This highlights the fact that natural hydrocarbon seepage, including methane seepage, has been an ongoing process in the area for thousands of years.

The study also suggests that more gas may be released in the future as sea temperatures rise.  It is important to understand the current state of the seepage to predict any future behaviour, points out Christoph Böttner.

“Climate change is already warming the Arctic at a high pace, and we do not even know the status-quo of seepage in many areas. Our study closes an important gap regarding natural seepage of oil and gas but also gas hydrates on the shallow Arctic shelves. The consequences of the observed seepage and implications for global climate and ecosystem are yet poorly understood.”

He recommends that the findings should be factored into the models used by researchers to predict the climate of the future. 

“Our calculations and data set demonstrate that there are sources of greenhouse gases in the Arctic, which are not yet documented. Polar regions are transforming rapidly under climate change with strong implications for global climate and ecosystems, so it is important to be able to understand and estimate the natural methane emissions and to factor them into our calculations of future greenhouse gas effects,” says Christoph Böttner.

 

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Journal

Nature

DOI

10.1038/s43247-025-02932-8 

Method of Research

Observational study

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Natural hydrocarbon seepage at the Northeast Greenland continental shelf

Article Publication Date

12-Nov-2025

 

Year-round edamame: hydroponic LED plant factories redefine sustainable cultivation

Researchers develop a hydroponic cultivation system using LED lighting to produce fresh, high-quality edamame consistently throughout the year

Peer-Reviewed Publication

Hosei University

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NFT hydroponic cultivation enables year-round edamame production under LED plant factories, boosting pod yield, sugar content, and isoflavones, while overcoming seasonal and environmental limitations of conventional field cultivation

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Credit: Professor Toshio Sano from Hosei University, Japan

Artificial light-type plant factories are an emerging agricultural innovation that enable crops to be grown year-round in precisely controlled environments. By adjusting factors such as light, temperature, humidity, carbon dioxide concentration, and nutrient delivery, these facilities can produce stable yields independent of climate conditions. They offer a promising way to reduce pesticide use and minimize the impacts of climate change. However, legumes like edamame have long been considered difficult to cultivate in such settings because of their long growth periods, short storage periods, complex flowering, and pod-setting processes. 

Against this backdrop, the research group, led by Professor Toshio Sano from the Faculty of Bioscience and Applied Chemistry, Hosei University, Japan, and Associate Professor Wataru Yamori of the Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences,  The University of Tokyo, Japan, had previously gained attention for successfully cultivating tomatoes under LED lighting in a plant factory. Building on that success, they set out to tackle edamame, a high-protein, nutrient-rich legume widely consumed worldwide. The findings were published online in the Volume 15 of the journal Scientific Reports on September 12, 2025. 

Edamame is traditionally harvested only during the summer months, and its freshness deteriorates rapidly after harvest, making it challenging to distribute or store for long periods. To overcome these barriers, the team conducted comparative experiments using three hydroponic systems: nutrient film technique (NFT), rock wool culture (ROC), and mist culture (MIST ). Their findings revealed that NFT provided the most vigorous plant growth, producing stronger stems, healthier leaves, and greater biomass than both other hydroponic methods and traditional open-field cultivation. 

Importantly, NFT also resulted in more pods and seeds, leading to yields that surpassed those achieved in the field. This demonstrated that it is not only possible to cultivate edamame indoors, but also to achieve higher productivity than conventional farming.

“Recent global warming and extreme weather events have raised concerns about reduced yields in open-field crop production. Our hydroponics technology offers a promising model for urban agriculture that is independent of climate conditions,” says Prof. Sano.

The team conducted quality analyses of the edamame produced through different cultivation methods and found notable differences. Plants grown using NFT had higher sucrose content, giving them a stronger sugar content compared to field-grown edamame. While free amino acid levels were slightly lower, the NFT method produced significantly higher levels of isoflavones, compounds known for their health benefits. The researchers suggested that LED lighting may stimulate the synthesis of these bioactive components, enhancing nutritional value beyond what is possible in open-field cultivation. This combination of superior taste and elevated health-promoting compounds marks a meaningful advancement in food quality achieved through controlled agricultural environment.

When multiple factors such as yield, sugar content, and nutritional value were evaluated, NFT cultivation was rated the highest overall. The method is also well suited for vertical, multi-layered growing systems, making it ideal for urban environments where land is scarce. By stacking production layers, farmers can maximize output without increasing the physical footprint of their facilities. This scalability, combined with year-round production capability, offers a promising solution for feeding growing urban populations in a sustainable manner.

The implications of this achievement extend far beyond urban agriculture. “Since edamame is cultivated not in open fields but through hydroponics in an LED-based plant factory, it may become possible to grow edamame even in urban areas, deserts, or outer space,” adds Prof. Sano as a long-term implication of the study. High-protein, nutrient-dense crops like edamame could provide a vital food source for long-term space exploration missions. By breaking the long-standing assumption that legumes cannot be cultivated in artificial light-type plant factories, this research sets the stage for major advancements in food security and sustainable agricultural systems.

This world-first success demonstrates that “growing delicious edamame anytime, anywhere” is no longer just an ambitious idea but an achievable reality. It represents a significant step toward resilient and innovative food production models that can support healthy diets and address global food challenges. From city skyscrapers to deserts and even outer space, this breakthrough points to a future where sustainable agriculture is no longer bound by season or geography.

***

Reference

Authors: Tomoki Takano1 , Yu Wakabayashi1, Soshi Wada2, Toshio Sano2, Saneyuki Kawabata1 and Wataru Yamori1

Title of original paper: Sustainable Edamame production in an artificial light plant factory with improved yield and quality

Journal: Scientific Reports

DOI: 10.1038/s41598-025-17131-w

Affiliations:
1Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Nishitokyo, Tokyo, Japan
2Faculty of Biosciences, Department of Clinical Plant Science, Hosei University, Tokyo, Japan

About Professor Toshio Sano from Hosei University, Japan
Dr. Toshio Sano is a Professor at the Faculty of Life Sciences, Hosei University. His research focuses on plant nutrition and physiology, particularly the molecular mechanisms of nutrient absorption and metabolism. He aims to develop techniques for cultivating crops with enhanced nutritional value and improved food functions. He has contributed to advancements in controlled-environment agriculture, including the first stable hydroponic cultivation of edamame in artificial light plant factories. His work has been widely recognized in scientific publications and research initiatives in sustainable crop production. He has published more than 50 articles with over 2,500 citations.

About Associate Professor Wataru Yamori from the University of Tokyo, Japan
Dr. Wataru Yamori is an Associate Professor from the Graduate School of Agriculture and Life Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Japan. His major research revolves around photosynthetic systems, mechanisms during food shortages, and developing cultivation systems in plant factories. Also, he conducts research to improve productivity of crops using physiological ecology and molecular physiology techniques. He has more than 100 publications with over 7,500 citations.

About Hosei University, Japan
Hosei University is one of the leading private universities in Tokyo, Japan. It offers international courses in many disciplines and has a long and rich history. Founded as a school of Law in 1880, Hosei University evolved into a private university by 1920. The university is also home to multiple research centers that conduct advanced research in various fields, including nanotechnology, sustainability, ecology, and more. The university has three main campuses—Ichigaya, Tama, and Koganei—located across Tokyo.
For more information, please see: https://www.hosei.ac.jp/

About The University of Tokyo, Japan
The University of Tokyo was established as the first National University in Japan in 1877. The University of Tokyo conducts research across various disciplines and provides a professional setting for intellectual development, along with opportunities to develop knowledge and skills. The university has also implemented the initiative of Green Transformation to achieve virtually zero greenhouse gas emissions, by collaborating with local communities located near the campus. Furthermore, the university offers extensive support in the development of start-up companies, empowering entrepreneurship.
For more information, please see: The University of Tokyo: https://www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/en/ 
Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences / Faculty of Agriculture, The University of Tokyo: https://www.a.u-tokyo.ac.jp/english/

NFT cultivation delivers year-round growth of edamame in LED plant factories, enhancing pod yield, sugar, and isoflavone content while enabling production beyond traditional field limitations.

Credit

Professor Toshio Sano from Hosei University, Japan

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Journal

Scientific Reports

DOI

10.1038/s41598-025-17131-w 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Sustainable Edamame production in an artificial light plant factory with improved yield and quality

Article Publication Date

12-Sep-2025

Tbilisi Now Home To A ‘Press Freedom Predator’

November 12, 2025 
By Eurasianet

(Eurasianet) — In a sign that Georgia has completed its authoritarian makeover, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has added the ruling Georgian Dream party’s founder, billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, to its list of global “press freedom predators,” citing his decisive influence over national politics and media outlets.

“[Ivanishvili] continues to be the center around which power gravitates in Georgia despite his official withdrawal from political life. His business empire guarantees him decisive influence,” RSF writes, placing him among figures who “ruin media financially.”

He joins a list of 34 press freedom predators worldwide, including Azerbaijan leader Ilham Aliyev, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and US tech titan Elon Musk.

The designation comes at the same time the European Union Commission released its annual enlargement assessment, in which Georgia is described as “a candidate country in name only.” Out of the 10 countries covered, Georgia received the most severe criticism; Serbia lagged far behind in the criticism department.

The Commission noted that the situation in Georgia has “significantly further deteriorated” since December of last year, when Tbilisi decided to suspend its accession process until 2028, a decision party leaders announced after disputed parliamentary elections, blaming the EU for “blackmailing.”

“In Georgia, the adopted and enforced restrictive laws targeting activists, civil society and independent media threaten the survival of democratic foundations and are unprecedented among candidate countries,” the assessment stated.

Asked about potential action, EU Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos said that later in November the Commission “will hopefully get the new visa-suspension mechanism, which will enable us to take some further steps”.

The EU has long threatened to suspend visa-free travel privileges for Georgians if Georgian Dream didn’t take fast action to reverse course. Despite the Georgian government’s outright rejection of an EU ultimatum, Brussels continues to hesitate on following through on its threat. The suspension of visa-free travel could spark mass protests against Georgian Dream, given that a sizable majority of the population supports EU accession.

In response to the EU assessment, Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze repeated the government’s longstanding narrative that the problem lies not with Georgia, but rather with the EU. “We want to become a member of the European Union by 2030, and I hope that by then the situation in the EU will have changed significantly,” Kobakhidze said. “Today, the behavior of the European bureaucracy has fallen to almost Soviet standards.”

The report’s release coincided with Kobakhidze’s visit to China. Speaking to TRT World, he said: “We share common values, that’s why it is particularly valuable for us to deepen cooperation with China.”

Amid Georgia’s descent into authoritarianism, the EU is finding a new favorite in the South Caucasus. The day after the enlargement report’s publication, the EU handed Armenia a Visa Liberalization Action Plan.

Meanwhile, the domestic crackdown in Georgia is ongoing. Prosecutors announced on November 6 a fresh batch of criminal charges against eight of the country’s most prominent opposition figures, six of whom are already behind bars.

Those facing new prosecutions for supposed “crimes against the state” include former president Mikheil Saakashvili, Giorgi Vashadze, Nika Gvaramia, Nika Melia, Zurab Japaridze, Elene Khoshtaria, Mamuka Khazaradze, and Badri Japaridze. The government is prosecuting those who worked with international partners over the past year, paving the way for the imposition of Western sanctions on government officials, observers in Brussels believe.

The announcement came one week after Georgian Dream asked the country’s rubber-stamp Constitutional Court to ban three of the country’s major opposition parties, citing a lengthy report from the disputed parliament’s investigative commission, set up by GD to rewrite the country’s post-Soviet history and justify its crackdown.

Eurasianet

Originally published at Eurasianet. Eurasianet is an independent news organization that covers news from and about the South Caucasus and Central Asia, providing on-the-ground reporting and critical perspectives on the most important developments in the region. A tax-exempt [501(c)3] organization, Eurasianet is based at Columbia University’s Harriman Institute, one of the leading centers in North America of scholarship on Eurasia. Read more at eurasianet.org