A metal sheet levitating in the sky, powered solely by light? It sounds like something out of science fiction. But researchers have designed just that: palm-size, perforated membranes that could hover in the upper atmosphere indefinitely by using temperature differences to passively move air around them. Researchers are hopeful that future versions of these tiny flying saucers, unveiled today in Nature, could help monitor the effects of climate change high above Earth—or even explore the atmosphere of Mars.
The devices are “game changers,” says Ruth Lieberman, a heliophysicist who worked on early proposals for the technology but was not involved in the Nature paper. The most efficient objects ever developed that can fly using this obscure physical effect, “they are the ultimate green ‘perpetual motion’ devices.”
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