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Starship 36 was preparing for 10th test flight from Texas when it underwent ‘catastrophic failure’ while on standOne of Elon Musk’s SpaceX Starships has exploded during a routine test in Texas, authorities said, in the latest setback to the billionaire’s dream of turning humanity into an interplanetary species.The Starship 36 underwent “catastrophic failure and exploded” at the Starbase launch fac... View Source

One of Elon Musk’s SpaceX rockets exploded during a routine test in Texas. The Starship 36 suffered 'catastrophic failure and exploded' at the Starbase launch facility according to the Cameron County authorities. Starship, the world’s largest and most powerful rocket, is central to Musk’s long-term vision of colonising Mars. This is the latest setback, with SpaceX betting that its 'fail fast,... View Source

The Golden Record – launched in 1977 on the Voyager space probes – contained everything from Chuck Berry to Chinese dialects and the sound of humpback whales. But what would we put on it today?It’s almost 50 years since one of the strangest records ever made was launched – not into the pop charts but into the farthest reaches of outer space. Known as the Golden Record, this 12-inch, gold-plated co... View Source

Watching the night sky, the time it takes for light from these celestial objects to reach Earth is vastly differentFollowing last week’s conjunction between Regulus and Mars, the moon now gets in on the act. This meeting of a star, a planet and a moon takes place on 29 June. The chart shows the view looking west from London at 22:15 BST that day.Red planet Mars has moved on from its close pass of... View Source

Stunning pictures from Vera C Rubin observatory in Chile released at start of 10-year survey of cosmosSpectacular views of distant galaxies, giant dust clouds and hurtling asteroids have been revealed in the first images captured by a groundbreaking telescope that is embarking on a 10-year survey of the cosmos.The stunning pictures from the $810m (£595m) Vera C Rubin observatory in Chile mark the... View Source

Researchers say satellites may be at risk and impact could create a spectacular meteor shower in the skies If a giant asteroid smashes into the moon in 2032 it could send lunar debris hurtling towards Earth, researchers have said, posing a risk to satellites but also creating a rare and spectacularly vivid meteor shower visible in the skies.Asteroid 2024 YR4 triggered a planetary defence response... View Source

Ever since Pluto was demoted from planet to dwarf planet in 2006, astronomers have been wondering whether Neptune really is the most distant planet from the sun. Now, a new telescope could uncover what lies in the farthest reaches of the solar system. The Vera C Rubin Observatory released its first images this week, and soon the world’s most powerful digital camera will be pointing across the whol... View Source

Countries send their first astronauts in decades into space on Axiom Mission 4, along with US commanderA US commercial mission carrying crew from India, Poland and Hungary blasted off to the International Space Station on Wednesday, taking astronauts from these countries to space for the first time in decades.Axiom Mission 4, or Ax-4, launched from Nasa’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 2.31am... View Source

TWA 7b is 110 light years away and by far the smallest-mass planet to be observed by direct imageryThe James Webb space telescope has captured unprecedented direct images of a planet beyond our own solar system, in its first exoplanet discovery.The observations reveal a planet, which has been called TWA 7b, carving its way through a disc of glowing dust and rocky debris in orbit around a star 110... View Source

With close encounters due in 2029 and 2032, space scientists are getting to grips with an existential threatIt is a scenario beloved of Hollywood: a huge asteroid, several miles wide, is on a collision course with Earth. Scientists check and recheck their calculations but there is no mistake – civilisation is facing a cataclysmic end unless the space rock can be deflected.It may sound like science... View Source

The brightest star in the constellation Virgo, Spica appears as a single object but is in fact a binary starThis week, the bright star Spica greets the passing moon. The chart shows the view looking south-west from London at 22.15 BST on 3 July 2025.At 8.3 days old, and with 60% of its visible surface illuminated, the moon will be just past its first quarter (half moon) phase and into its waxing g... View Source

Cambridge’s Institute of Astronomy is trying to find a photo of Annie Walker, who died in 1940, to give her star billingFor more than a century, astronomers assumed she had simply “computed” complex calculations for the Victorian men who had exclusive use of Cambridge Observatory telescopes.But researchers now say that Annie Walker – a Victorian woman who began working at the observatory in 1879,... View Source

Scientists have warned loss of data access to Noaa and Nasa experts could set hurricane forecasting ‘back decades’The Trump administration on Monday announced a delay of one month to a plan to cut forecasters out of an atmospheric satellite data collection program that is seen as crucial for hurricane forecasting.There has been alarm among scientists about the plan to cut access to the data after... View Source

Chef with 10 Michelin stars has designed meals for Sophie Adenot’s trip to International Space Station next yearWhen the French astronaut Sophie Adenot travels to the International Space Station (ISS) next year, she will be heading for the stars – not quite in celestial but certainly in gastronomic terms.Adenot will dine on not just freeze-dried space food staples but also French classics such as... View Source

Astronomer says object could be further evidence that ‘interstellar wanderers’ are common in galaxyIt isn’t a bird, it isn’t a plane and it certainly isn’t Superman – but it does appear to be a visitor from beyond our solar system, according to astronomers who have discovered a new object hurtling through our cosmic neighbourhood.The object, originally called A11pl3Z and now known as 3I/Atlas, was... View Source

The new Fairphone 6 is smaller and more modular than older models in the series, but it’s just as repairable. The phone picked up a perfect score in iFixit’s teardown test, despite no longer offering tool-free battery replacements. It helps that the only tool you do need — throughout the phone — is a T5 Torx screwdriver, and only seven screws sit between you and a battery swap. Fairphone itself ha... View Source

Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy Z Fold 7 has been given the thinner, sleeker glow-up we expected, if leaked hands-on photos are any indication. The trio of images posted by leaker @Jukanlosreve seemingly show what the next-gen Galaxy foldable will look like in the real world from a few different angles. The new photographs mostly line up with what we’ve seen in previous renders, including the larger, sl... View Source

I walked into Blackdot's tattoo studio in Austin's east side on a sweltering May afternoon. After shaking my sweat-soaked hand, founder and CEO Joel Pennington led me up into an office building and opened the door to a small, three-room space. Critics have unflatteringly compared the studio to a sterile hospital room - a comparison not entirely without merit. In a corner room, the machine I had co... View Source

Once upon a time in America, there was a tyrant. And Congress rejected him totally. The tyrant, of course, was King George III, the target of the Declaration of Independence. We take it for granted now, but the Declaration was an enormous political innovation - in it, the country that became the United States of America laid claim to certain "unalienable" rights, rights that took precedence over a... View Source

Bluetooth trackers come in all shapes and sizes. | Illustration: Cath Virginia / The Verge Editor’s note: Amazon Prime Day kicks off on July 8th; however, if you want to get a head start on your online shopping, we’ve rounded up the best early Prime Day deals you can already get. Some people rarely lose things. Wallets are always exactly where they’re supposed to be, keys never go missing, and rem... View Source

The Ploopy Knob controller can double as a desktop fidget toy. | Image: Ploopy Ploopy has announced another desktop accessory called the Ploopy Knob that can function like a control dial for adjusting volume, scrolling documents, or scrubbing through media on a computer. The Canadian company isn’t exactly a household name like Logitech, but Ploopy’s open-source peripherals offer a lot of customiza... View Source

The sweeping layoffs announced by Microsoft this week have been especially hard on its gaming studios, but one Xbox executive has a solution to “help reduce the emotional and cognitive load that comes with job loss”: seek advice from AI chatbots. In a now-deleted LinkedIn post captured by Aftermath, Xbox Game Studios’ Matt Turnbull said that he would be “remiss in not trying to offer the best advi... View Source

Editor’s note: Amazon Prime Day kicks off on July 8th; however, if you want to get a head start on your online shopping, we’ve rounded up the best early Prime Day deals you can already get. It’s hard to buy a bad pair of wireless earbuds these days, and with constant discounts and deals wherever you look, now is as good of a time as any to splurge on the pair you’ve been eyeing. The mark... View Source

In May, we learned that the development of a sequel to the Cyberpunk 2077 game is moving forward at CD Projekt Red, and today, at the Anime Expo 2025 event, it officially announced a new season of the anime spinoff for Netflix. Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2 will have “…an entirely new story, fresh characters, and a raw, realistic take on the most dangerous city of the dark future. The new season will b... View Source

The Apple Watch Series 10 isn’t a vast departure from the prior model, but the iterative changes are welcome nonetheless. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Editor’s note: Amazon Prime Day kicks off on July 8th; however, if you want to get a head start on your online shopping, we’ve rounded up the best early Prime Day deals you can already get. In September, Apple launched its... View Source