NASA astronaut Sunita Williams just turned 59 in space on Thursday. She celebrated her milestone birthday aboard the International Space Station (ISS), which is around 400 kilometres above Earth, for the second time.
Earlier her birthday celebration took place during a 2012 mission.
Since June 6, Sunita Williams along with NASA astronaut Barry ‘Butch’ Wilmore has been aboard the ISS as part of the Boeing Crew Flight Test mission. Due to technical issues with the Boeing Starliner spacecraft, their stay has been unexpectedly extended.
They are expected to return in February 2025.
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On her special day, Williams took up the task of maintaining the space laboratory.
Reportedly, Williams celebrated her birthday by replacing filters in the waste and hygiene compartment. She also performed the essential task with the help of NASA astronaut Don Pettit to ensure safe and healthy living conditions on the ISS.
Williams participated in a conference with Mission Control in Houston, Texas. Williams also engaged in discussions with flight directors in Houston, collaborating with astronauts Wilmore and Frank Rubio to outline mission objectives and upcoming tasks.
Sunita Williams also received birthday wishes from Bollywood stars along with loved ones and family.
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Saregama Official shared a heartwarming video on Instagram that featured a compilation video of famous Indian stars singing Happy Birthday in Hindi to the astronaut.
The video began with filmmaker Karan Johar sending birthday wishes to Williams, followed by singers, Hariharan, Sonu Nigam, Neeti Mohan and Shaan Mukherji.
In 1998, after joining NASA’s astronaut program, Williams launched into space for the first time on December 9, 2006, during the STS-116 mission.
As a flight engineer for Expeditions 14 and 15, Williams set multiple records, including over 29 hours of spacewalks and more than 195 days in orbit.
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By piloting Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner’s first crewed test flight, Williams made history by successfully docking with the ISS despite facing technical challenges.
Lithuania’s Vinted has secured a new valuation of €5 billion (around $5.4 billion at current exchange rates), after the second-hand fashion marketplace closed a secondary share sale worth €340 million ($367 million).
The transaction was led by private equity giant TPG, with other new participants including Baillie Gifford, FJ Labs, Hedosophia, Invus Opportunities, Manhattan Venture Partners, and Moore Strategic Ventures. It’s unclear how much Vinted’s existing investors cashed out, but the company says that all its existing institutional investors — which include Accel, EQT, Insight Partners, and Lightspeed Venture Partners — have retained at least some stake.
Vinted CEO Thomas Plantenga (pictured above) noted that the sale “rewards our employees for their dedication in making Vinted a success.” The company was valued at €3.5 billion ($3.8 billion) pre-money for its previous €250 million Series F fundraise back in 2021. Since then, it has gone from strength to strength, reporting record revenue growth of 61% in 2023 compared to the previous year and reaching profitability for the first time.
At the same time, Vinted has expanded geographically and is also extending beyond its core fashion roots into the electronics realm — a growth trajectory that prompted marketplace stalwart eBay to respond by removing seller fees in key European markets.
Three industry groups are suing to prevent the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) from enforcing its new “Click to Cancel” rule that requires companies to make it easy to cancel subscriptions, according to Reuters. And yes, it’s exactly who you’d expect.
Click to cancel expands the Negative Option Rule to forbid businesses from making customers cancel services using a method that differs from how they signed up. So, if you sign up online, you must be allowed to cancel online, rather than needing to call a support line, write a letter, or show up in person. Most aspects of the rule, assuming it isn’t blocked, will go into effect 180 days from its entry into the Federal Register.
That’s “arbitrary, capricious, and an abuse of discretion,” the Internet and Television Association, Electronic Security Association, and Interactive Advertising Bureau allege in their complaint filed with the US Fifth Circuit Appeals Court today. The groups — many of whose member companies profit from subscriptions that are easy to start and harder to stop — argue that the FTC is trying to “regulate consumer contracts for all companies in all industries and across all sectors of the economy.”
Indeed, the rule applies to any automatically renewing subscription, whether it’s a gym membership or Amazon Prime, including free trials or those plans that ship you easy-to-cook dinners. The horror!
Arrowhead Game Studios has confirmed that Helldivers 2 will receive a PS5 Pro upgrade in the future.
That’s according to Arrowhead community manager ‘Twinbeard’ who revealed on the Helldivers 2Discord channel that the popular third-person online shooter will eventually get some form of PS5 Pro upgrade at a later date, but stopped short of sharing what those enhancements will be (via PSU).
“There will be differences between the current PS5 and Pro versions,” Twinbeard commented. “But what those are is yet to be confirmed.”
Now that Sony has officially announced the mid-generation console, more studios have since revealed their plans for their PS5 Pro-enhanced games.
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Earlier this week, Remedy Entertainment confirmed that it will take “full advantage” of the console to enhance its critically acclaimed 2023 horror title, Alan Wake 2, revealing that thegame will receive Quality and Performance mode upgrades that will utilize Sony‘s new upscaling method, PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR).
Naughty Dog also released the PS5 Pro patch for The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered which will allow players to access a new rendering mode that uses PSSR, a new “Pro” graphics settings option that will render at a resolution of 1440p, upscaled to 4K via PSSR, as well as target 60 frames per second.
Former Australian cricketer Steve Waugh says that he is learning a lot about space technology and is very excited about it. He was a surprise at the Bengaluru Space Expo (BSX) 2024 that began today. “I am surprised myself to be at the space expo. Space is exciting and new for me and I am learning a lot about space as I go along. I am very happy to be involved in this joint venture between Austraila and India. I have been coming to India for the last forty years with charity, with cricket, with business and this is another opportunity to collaborate with India. I am excited to be involved in it and Australia and India can do great things together in space technology,” said Waugh who is also the brand ambassador of Space Machines Company an Australian India in space servicing firm.
The Space Machines Company has forged strategic partnerships with two Indian companies Ananth Technologies and Digantara. These partnerships are expected to play a significant role in the upcoming Space MAITRI (Mission for Australia-India’Technology, Research and Innovation) mission and the launch of Space Machines Company’s second Optimus satellite. Scheduled for 2026, the satellite will be deployed abroad NewSpace India Limited (NSIL) Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV).
It will be the largest Australian-made spacecraft in orbit. The Space Machines Company’s second Optimus spacecraft, a 450 kg Orbital Servicing Vehicle will be launched on NSIL’s Small Satellite Launch Vehicle and is part of the first dedicated launch agreement between Australia and India.
The mission will focus on debris management and sustainability and will significantly advance Australia’s domestic space industry, by combining Australian spacecraft capabilities with India’s launch expertise.
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“We will work closely with Ananth Technologies and Digantara throughout the space MAITRI project lifecycle, leveraging each company’s advanced engineering, logisitc, and situation space awareness capabilities to fulfil the joint Australian-Indian mission of building a more sustainable space future,” said Rajat Kulshrestha, CEO and Co-founder of Space Machines Company.
Under the partnership, Ananth Technologies will provide Assembly Integration and Testing (AIT) and comprehensive engineering and logistics support throughout the Space MAITRI program. This will include the safe transportation and handling of all spacecraft components in India, extensive testing and launch site spacecraft fueling. This collaboration with Ananth Technologies between the two companies will ensure that Space Machines Company’s second Optimus spacecraft is successfully integrated into the SSLV and ready for launch.
On the other hand, the collaboration with Digantara will enable the Optimus spacecraft to track and engage short range resident space objects a vital capability when executing close approach maneuvers during in orbit operations.
Interestingly the Australian government has invested $ 8.5 million in the Space MAITRI mission in April 2024 through the Australian Space Agency’s $18 million International Space Investment India Projects program. “This mission and the collaborations that underpin it emphasise the role that space can play in enhancing cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region for mutual benefit. This mission leverages our nation’s respective capabilities and advantages to make space activities more sustainable-something the global space community is focussed on to protect and maintain the assets in orbit that are central to a functioning modern society,” remarked Enrico Palermo, head of the Australian Space Agency.
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Space Machines Company is an Australian company that delivers on orbit servicing and protection of critical space infrastructure through its Orbital Servicing Network. This company supports mobility, inspection, deorbiting, repair, life extension and protection capbaility to satellite customers when and where they need it.
A chandelier evokes the rig of microphones used to capture the recordings
Leon Chew, The Call, Holly Herndon and Mat Dryhurst with sub, Serpentine, 2024
The Call Holly Herndon and Mat Dryhurst Serpentine North, London Closes 2 February 2025
Step into London’s Serpentine North gallery and the first thing you see is an organ. But it is far from a conventional instrument with gleaming flues and reeds. This organ is made up of fans used to cool graphics processing units. Each fan whirs at a pitch that depends on its oscillation, and the sounds combine in an otherworldly hymn…
The meteorite was 40-60km in diameter and left a crater 500km across
A huge meteorite first discovered in 2014 caused a tsunami bigger than any in known human history and boiled the oceans, scientists have discovered.
The space rock, which was 200 times the size of the one that wiped out the dinosaurs, smashed into Earth when our planet was in its infancy three billion years ago.
Carrying sledge hammers, scientists hiked to the impact site in South Africa to chisel off chunks of rock to understand the crash.
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The team also found evidence that massive asteroid impacts did not bring only destruction to Earth – they helped early life thrive.
“We know that after Earth first formed there was still a lot of debris flying around space that would be smashing into Earth,” says Prof Nadja Drabon from Harvard university, lead author of the new research.
“But now we have found that life was really resilient in the wake of some of these giant impacts, and that it actually bloomed and thrived,” she says.
The meteorite S2 was much larger than the space rock we are most familiar with. The one that led to the dinosaurs’ extinction 66 million years ago was about 10km wide, or almost the height of Mount Everest.
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But S2 was 40-60km wide and its mass was 50-200 times greater.
It struck when Earth was still in its early years and looked very different. It was a water world with just a few continents sticking out of the sea. Life was very simple – microorganisms composed of single cells.
Nadja Drabon
Nadja and her colleagues went to the Eastern Barberton Greenstone Belt in South Africa to collect rock samples
The impact site in Eastern Barberton Greenbelt is one of the oldest places on Earth with remnants of a meteorite crash.
Prof Drabon travelled there three times with her colleagues, driving as far as possible into the remote mountains before hiking the rest of the way with backpacks.
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Rangers accompanied them with machine guns to protect them against wild animals like elephants or rhinos, or even poachers in the national park.
They were looking for spherule particles, or tiny fragments of rock, left behind by impact. Using sledge hammers, they collected hundreds of kilograms of rock and took them back to labs for analysis.
Prof Drabon stowed the most precious pieces in her luggage.
“I usually get stopped by security, but I give them a big spiel about how exciting the science is and then they get really bored and let me through,” she says.
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Nadja Drabon
The team travelled with rangers who could protect them from wild animals like elephants or rhinos
The team have now re-constructed just what the S2 meteorite did when it violently careened into Earth. It gouged out a 500km crater and pulverised rocks that ejected at incredibly fast speeds to form a cloud that circled around the globe.
“Imagine a rain cloud, but instead of water droplets coming down, it’s like molten rock droplets raining out of the sky,” says Prof Drabon.
A huge tsunami would have swept across the globe, ripped up the sea floor, and flooded coastlines.
The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami would have paled in comparison, suggests Prof Drabon.
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All that energy would have generated massive amounts of heat that boiled the oceans causing up to tens of metres of water to evaporate. It would also have increased air temperatures by up to 100C.
The skies would have turned black, choked with dust and particles. Without sunlight penetrating the darkness, simple life on land or in shallow water that relied on photosynthesis would have been wiped out.
Nadja Drabon
The team of geologists analysed rock showing evidence of ripped up seafloor
These impacts are similar to what geologists have found about other big meteorite impacts and what was suspected for S2.
But what Prof Drabon and her team found next was surprising. The rock evidence showed that the violent disturbances churned up nutrients like phosphorus and iron that fed simple organisms.
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“Life was not only resilient, but actually bounced back really quickly and thrived,” she says.
“It’s like when you brush your teeth in the morning. It kills 99.9% of bacteria, but by the evening they’re all back, right?” she says.
The new findings suggest that the big impacts were like a giant fertiliser, sending essential ingredients for life like phosphorus around the globe.
The tsunami sweeping the planet would also have brought iron-rich water from the depths to the surface, giving early microbes extra energy.
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The findings add to a growing view among scientists that early life was actually helped by the violent succession of rocks striking Earth in its early years, Prof Drabon says.
“It seems that life after the impact actually encountered really favourable conditions that allowed it to bloom,” she explains.
The findings are published in the scientific journal PNAS.
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