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New research is able to recover sound waves in a room by observing minute changes in the room's light bulbs. This technique works from a distance, even from a building across the street through a window.

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In an experiment using three different telescopes with different lens diameters from a distance of 25 meters (a little over 82 feet) the researchers were successfully able to capture sound being played in a remote room, including The Beatles' Let It Be, which was distinguishable enough for Shazam to recognize it, and a speech from President Trump that Google's speech recognition API could successfully transcribe. With more powerful telescopes and a more sensitive analog-to-digital converter, the researchers believe the eavesdropping distances could be even greater.

It's not expensive: less than $1,000 worth of equipment is required. And unlike other techniques like bouncing a laser off the window and measuring the vibrations, it's completely passive.

News articles.

JAXA / NHK

Most people are familiar with the Apollo images of the Moon, showing astronauts at work and play on the lunar surface. But those photos often don't entirely do justice to the Moon's stark beauty, and some of the most amazing images of Earth's companion come not from the surface, but above. Perhaps no spacecraft has better captured this than one launched by Japan nearly a decade ago.

Beginning in October, 2007, Japan's Kayuga spacecraft spent the better part of two years in a polar orbit around the Moon, including passes from as close as 100km. As part of its payload, the spacecraft carried two 2.2 megapixel CCD HDTV color cameras, one a telephoto and one a wide-angle. These cameras returned the first high-definition video of the Moon back to Earth.

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