The Week Junior UK - Issue 189, 27 July 2019

27 July 2019•The Week Junior 15

CHRIS GARRISON

·GREA

TO

RMOND STREET HOSPITAL

·PA·R

EX SHUTTERSTOCK

Pilotsbreakrecord with

round-the-worldflight

A

team led by British pilot Hamish

Harding andretired US astronaut

ColonelTerry Virts has broken the

worldrecordfor thefastest trip all

the wayaround the world (called a

circumnavigatio ) an aircraft n

over the north a

Taking off fr

Kennedy Space

in Florida in the

the crew made t

24,962-mile trip

46 hours, 39 mi

and 38 seconds.

previousrecord,

CaptainWalter

42 years ago,

hours, seven minutes.“I’m

ecstatic.We pushed the boundaries of

aeronautics, and the aircraft handled

it flawlessly,” Hardingexplained toThe

Timesnewspaper.

Flying at an average of 534.

in aQatar Airways Gulfstrea

A

nartificially intelligent (AI)

computercalled DeepCubeA has

taught itself how to solveaRubik’s

Cube. AI is the name given to a

computer system thatcan“think”for

itself and perform tasksthat usually

requirehuman intelligence.

Invented in 1974, the Rubik’s

Cube isa3Dlogic puzzle made up of

differentcoloured squares.To solve it, a

human player has to swivel the squares

around so thateach side of the puzzle

only displays onecolour –asshown

above. Skilled humanplayers usually

co e puzzle in around 50

moves, t DeepCubeA has managed

to solve 1,000 different cubes in an

average of 28 moves. Thecomputer

system, built byateamatthe University

of California, in the US, worked out

the shortest set of moves nearly two

thirds of the time. Although it took less

than asecond tocomplete the puzzle,

speedwasnot the aim–itwas to see if

DeepCubeAcould find its own solutions

to the fiendishly trickyRubik’sCube,

rather thanrelying on instructions given

to it by its human operators.

jet aircraft, the team stopped for fuel

in Kazakhstan, Mauritius and Chile,

landing for 30 minuteseach time.

Flying over the SouthPole pushed the

plane to its limits as temperatures

dropped to -83ºC(three derees colder

ty level).

accident,

cedto

ker air,

warm

but also

own.

am

fely

on

hieved

anew worldrecord.The

mission,called“One MoreOrbit”,

commemorated both the 50th

anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon

landing and the 500th anniversary

the first circumnavigation of the

y ship.

VISITsciencenature.theweekjunior.co.

BLOW YOUR MIND

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The latest issue ofScience+Naturetakes you behind the scenes a

Danish artist Olafur Eliasson’sstudio to discover how art inspired

by sciencehelps people understand our changing world.We als

takeawalk on the wild side, and meet the urban animals surviving

and thriving in our cities. Finally,join in the debate about whether

technology is making us ruder,and discover the truth behind an alien

spaceship crash in 1947. Grabacopy of the new issue on sale now!

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at

d

o

vi

Harding(left),Virtsand

othercrewmembers.

Thefiendish

Rubik’sCube.

l t

oo

) an aircraft

o

dropped to 83C(threedegr

wasfo

a

TheGuinness

recordcertificate.

WOW!

Thefirs

trecorde

dtripall

thewa

yaround the

world

launche

dbyship

in 1519

andtook thr

eeyears

tocomplete.