The business and technology of space.
Earth Observation

A single lightning flash recorded over the southern US in April 2020 stretched 768 kilometres across three states in a matter of seconds, a horizontal bolt long enough to reach from Boston to Washington DC, and satellite instruments only exist to measure it because ground observers cannot see that far

Nature's longest lightning bolt was invisible to the people beneath it, revealing how much of Earth's electrical drama unfolds beyond human perception.

By Space Mart Editorial Team · Aug 4, 2026

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Wood Pile

How did a treeless volcanic island in the North Atlantic, stripped of its birch forests by Viking axes over a thousand years ago, begin clawing woodland back onto slopes of black ash and wind?

Iceland lost more than 95% of its birch forests after Norse settlement in 874 CE, and now plants three to four million trees a year to claw woodland back onto slopes of volcanic ash. Here's how the soil chemistry, the sheep economy, and a century of forestry are rebuilding the least-forested country in Europe.

By Space Mart Editorial Team · Aug 21, 2026
Water World

How does reintroducing a dam-building rodent to a drought-prone valley raise the water table, cool the stream, and store more carbon in the floodplain than the surrounding forest?

A single family of beavers on Devon's River Otter built an 80-metre dam holding a million litres, raised the water table by more than a metre, and turned a straightened ditch into a braided wetland storing more carbon than the surrounding forest — the mechanics of how one rodent rehydrates a valley.

By Space Mart Editorial Team · Aug 18, 2026
Africa News

How did an East African community, told to fence wildlife out for conservation, instead grant grazing rights across shared rangelands and see lion, elephant and giraffe numbers climb alongside their cattle herds?

In 2010, roughly 500 Maasai landowners in Kenya pooled 50,000 acres into the Naboisho Conservancy, kept their cattle on the land, and watched lion, elephant and giraffe numbers climb — while collecting monthly lease payments tied to the wildlife's return.

By Space Mart Editorial Team · Aug 13, 2026
Tech Space

How did a London physician stop a cholera outbreak that killed more than 500 people in ten days by mapping deaths on a Soho street grid and removing the handle from a single water pump in 1854?

In September 1854, London physician John Snow ended a cholera outbreak that killed 616 people in ten days by mapping every death on a Soho street grid, tracing the cluster to a single contaminated water pump on Broad Street, and having its handle removed — founding modern epidemiology in the process.

By Space Mart Editorial Team · Aug 10, 2026
Tech Space

In 1869, a Swiss physician named Friedrich Miescher isolated a strange phosphorus-rich substance from the pus-soaked bandages of wounded soldiers at a Tübingen clinic, called it 'nuclein', and unknowingly became the first person to hold purified DNA in his hands, 84 years before Watson and Crick built their model

In 1868, a young Swiss physician named Friedrich Miescher scraped pus from surgical bandages inside a converted castle kitchen in Tübingen and isolated a strange phosphorus-rich substance he called 'nuclein' — the first purified DNA, 84 years before Watson and Crick.

By Space Mart Editorial Team · Aug 9, 2026

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About SpaceMart

The business and technology of space.

SpaceMart is an independent publication covering commercial space, space technology, satellite internet, aerospace engineering, and the companies building the global space economy. The site pairs a deep archive with current reporting on the research, companies, policy shifts, and technical breakthroughs shaping commercial space infrastructure and services. We employ modern AI technologies to support our editorial workflows; every published piece is editorially directed and reviewed.

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