SCIENCE

WASHINGTON — Elon Musk on Tuesday described SpaceX's unprecedented dominance in orbital rocket launches as merely "a start," underscoring that far greater efforts are required to fulfill the company's ultimate mission of extending human consciousness across the stars.

TOKYO — Japan, situated on the volatile Pacific Ring of Fire where multiple tectonic plates converge, has endured some of the most powerful and destructive earthquakes ever recorded, with the 2011 Tohoku event standing as the strongest in the nation's modern history at magnitude 9.1 and triggering a catastrophic tsunami that claimed nearly 20,000 lives.

SANTA BARBARA, California — Nobel Prize-winning physicist David Gross has issued a stark warning that humanity stands a slim chance of surviving another 50 years, citing the grave risk of nuclear war as the primary barrier preventing scientists from achieving a unified theory of all fundamental forces.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida — Blue Origin's powerful New Glenn rocket lifted off Sunday morning from Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, successfully carrying AST SpaceMobile's BlueBird 7 satellite into low Earth orbit on the company's third orbital mission and marking the first reflight of a New Glenn first-stage booster.

HAWTHORNE, Calif. — SpaceX has unveiled its most advanced rocket engine yet with the Raptor 3, a leap forward in power, efficiency and simplicity that Elon Musk described as "by far the best rocket engine ever made."

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Elon Musk's SpaceX continues to dominate the billionaire space rivalry with Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin as 2026 unfolds, launching far more often, expanding its Starlink constellation and advancing ambitious lunar base plans while Blue Origin ramps up its New Glenn rocket and Blue Moon lander efforts in a methodical bid to catch up.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A viral X post by Elon Musk showcasing SpaceX's Starship Super Heavy Booster being transported across the Texas landscape has captivated millions, with the tech mogul declaring it the most powerful moving object ever built by humanity and sparking fresh awe over the rapid pace of reusable rocket technology.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Air Force released striking new images of its next-generation B-21 Raider stealth bomber in midair refueling this week, a dramatic public display that comes amid heightened tensions with Iran and underscores America's advancing long-range strike capabilities.

A sharp jolt rattled homes across the Central West of New South Wales on Tuesday evening as a magnitude 4.5 earthquake struck near Orange, sending tremors through the region and prompting hundreds of resident reports.

NEW YORK — World Quantum Day returns Tuesday as a decentralized global celebration of quantum science and technology, building momentum after the 2025 International Year of Quantum Science and Technology with hundreds of events worldwide aimed at making complex physics accessible to the public.

KINGSTON, R.I. — Quantum physics, long confined to laboratories and advanced mathematics, stepped into the spotlight here Friday as the University of Rhode Island hosted its fifth annual World Quantum Day event, drawing elected officials, tech executives, students and members of the public into conversations that blended qubits with culture, ethics and everyday life.

HOUSTON — Intuitive Machines Inc. shares rose more than 2% in early trading Monday to $24.14 as the lunar exploration company continued to draw investor interest following its recent $180.4 million NASA contract win and ambitious full-year 2026 revenue guidance of $900 million to $1 billion, nearly five times 2025 levels.

HOUSTON — NASA astronaut Victor Glover stood before a packed auditorium Saturday, voice cracking with emotion, as he thanked God, his crewmates, families and the thousands who made Artemis II possible — a raw moment of gratitude captured on video that has since rocketed across social media following the crew's triumphant return from humanity's first crewed lunar flyby in more than 50 years.

BOCA CHICA, Texas — Elon Musk on Sunday posted a striking image of SpaceX's latest Starship Super Heavy booster, captioned simply "Starship," that has already amassed more than 6.4 million views and ignited fresh excitement about the company's push toward rapid reusability and eventual Mars missions in 2026.

WASHINGTON — As the U.S.-Iran conflict enters its seventh week in April 2026, America's advanced stealth weapons have proven decisive in degrading Iranian air defenses, missile sites and nuclear infrastructure while minimizing risk to U.S. personnel. From long-range cruise missiles to next-generation aircraft, these systems have allowed precise strikes deep inside contested airspace.

SAN DIEGO — NASA released an iconic image Saturday showing the four Artemis II astronauts standing proudly beside their Orion spacecraft, named Integrity, in the well deck of the USS John P. Murtha just hours after a flawless Pacific Ocean splashdown that capped humanity's first crewed lunar voyage in more than half a century.

MONTREAL — Astronomers have identified a distant world that could rewrite understanding of planetary composition: an exoplanet potentially made up of as much as 30 percent water by mass, a staggering fraction that dwarfs Earth's meager water content and suggests a globe-spanning ocean hundreds of kilometers deep with no continents in sight.

VANDENBERG SPACE FORCE BASE, Calif. — SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket carrying 25 Starlink satellites into low-Earth orbit Friday night from California's Vandenberg Space Force Base, marking the reusable booster's 32nd flight and underscoring the company's relentless pace in expanding its global satellite internet constellation.

SAN DIEGO — NASA's Artemis II Orion spacecraft successfully splashed down in the Pacific Ocean approximately 50 to 60 miles off the coast of San Diego, California, at 5:07 p.m. PDT (8:07 p.m. EDT) on Friday, April 10, 2026, safely returning four astronauts from humanity's first crewed lunar voyage in more than 50 years.

SAN DIEGO — NASA's Artemis II astronauts splashed down safely in the Pacific Ocean off California's coast Friday night, capping a historic 10-day voyage around the Moon that marked humanity's first crewed lunar mission in more than half a century and set a new record for the farthest distance humans have ever traveled from Earth.

HOUSTON — Four astronauts aboard NASA's Orion spacecraft hurtled toward Earth on Friday, April 10, 2026, capping a groundbreaking 10-day journey around the Moon — the first crewed lunar mission in more than half a century — with a high-stakes splashdown expected in the Pacific Ocean off San Diego at approximately 8:07 p.m. EDT (5:07 p.m. PDT).

HOUSTON — As NASA's Artemis II astronauts hurtle back toward Earth aboard the Orion spacecraft, the agency on Friday released a video compilation celebrating the "Moon joy" — an intense happiness and excitement unique to lunar missions — that the four-person crew has experienced during humanity's first crewed voyage around the Moon in more than half a century.

HOUSTON — The four astronauts aboard NASA's Artemis II spacecraft were roused from sleep Monday with an upbeat Christian anthem performed by the late gospel singer Mandisa and TobyMac, marking a touching moment on the sixth day of the historic crewed lunar mission as the Orion capsule reached record distances from Earth.

HAWTHORNE, Calif. — Elon Musk has long promised that SpaceX's massive Starship could one day whisk passengers from Tokyo to New York in about 30 minutes, turning intercontinental travel into a suborbital hop that skips the jet lag and endless airport lines.

Elon Musk's SpaceX holds a commanding lead in the intensifying rivalry with Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin, launching more rockets, deploying thousands of satellites and securing key NASA contracts, even as both billionaires pivot aggressively toward lunar ambitions in 2026 amid a broader U.S. push to beat China back to the Moon.

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea's ballistic missile program continues its relentless pace in 2026, with frequent short-range launches, upgrades to solid-fuel engines for intercontinental systems and a clear focus on survivable, nuclear-capable weapons that can threaten South Korea, Japan and the U.S. mainland.

From roughly 250,000 miles away aboard NASA's Orion spacecraft, Artemis II mission pilot Victor Glover offered an impromptu Easter reflection that has resonated far beyond the lunar orbit, marveling at "the beauty of creation" and reminding Earthlings they inhabit a special "spaceship" crafted for human life amid a vast, mostly empty cosmos.

HOUSTON — NASA's Artemis II mission achieved a landmark moment Monday when its four astronauts aboard the Orion spacecraft flew farther from Earth than any humans in history, breaking the Apollo 13 distance record while completing a dramatic flyby of the Moon's far side during the first crewed deep-space test flight in more than 50 years.

PHILADELPHIA — A brilliant daytime fireball streaked across the skies over the Philadelphia region and parts of five states Tuesday afternoon, prompting hundreds of eyewitness reports and drawing swift analysis from NASA's Meteoroid Environments Office, which released detailed trajectory data confirming the event as a meteor burning up high in Earth's atmosphere.