Recently, Australia has launched its first Eris Rocket Skyward; however, in no time, it didn’t get very far. But the history has been recorded in the books. The country has launched its own orbital that was entirely crafted within the country. The company Gilmour Space achieved the milestone on July 29th, 2025, when it sent its first Eris rocket into the sky. It took the flight from the Bowen Orbital Spaceport in coastal Queensland at 6:35 p.m. EDT (8:30 am local time in Australia).

How Did The Failure Occur?

As the liftoff commenced, the Eris couldn’t get far, and the rocket began to slide sideways. It soon rose off the pad and within a span of 14 seconds, crashed back to the Earth. This crash was best compared with that of the third orbital launch attempt enforced by Astra (California) in the year 2021. Although Gilmour Space was not entirely relying on the success.

Dating back to February, the Gilmour company stated, “Whether we make it off the pad, reach max Q, or get all the way to space, what’s important is that every second of the flight will deliver valuable data that will improve our rocket’s reliability and performance for future launches”. Significantly, post-launch, they issued a statement narrating that it is a big step for launch and that they have their eyes on it. Also, there were no injuries reported or other environmental impacts during the launch.

Behind the Scenes of Orbital Launch: The Plans and Execution

The orbital launch, which occurred on July 29th, 2025, was previously aimed to be executed in May; however, due to Tropical Cyclone Alfred, the Gilmour Space had to postpone it. Soon after the cyclone cleared, the company targeted the launch in mid-May, but could not proceed due to a technical issue, where the rocket’s payload fairing failed suddenly. As stated by Gilmour Space, the issue was caused due to a power surge.

After fixing the technical issues, the company again planned the launch for June. But, as Gilmour Space operates north of the town of Bowen, the winds did not fit well, and due to unfavourable weather, the launch was rescheduled for later. Finally, in July, it went off air.

To Conclude

Gilmour Space was founded by Adam Gilmour and James Gilmour. This brother duo aims to reach heights in the area of spaceflight. Not only is Eris their focus, but they have also invented satellites. The launch was a big attempt for the country, and such advancement was a big breakthrough in over 50 years.

Back in the year 2017, when a thunderstorm exhibited a lightning bolt, it was astonishing in many ways. Not only was it surprising, but it was a bolt that went 515 miles (829 Kilometers) long. In recent scientific advancements, researchers have confirmed the length of the bolt using archival satellite data. The lightning stretched and travelled from Texas to Missouri. This lightning has finally made a world record by beating the previous record holder, which was a bolt that went 477 miles in the year 2020.

According to Randy Cerveny, an Arizona State University professor, who played a significant role in the study, stated, “We call it megaflash lightning and we’re just figuring out the mechanics of how and why it occurs”.

More About Megaflash Lightning

Megaflash lightning could be best described as a lightning bolt that possesses the capacity to reach 62 miles in length. Whereas, the average lightning bolt is less than 10 miles in length. In order to find the reason behind this megaflash, the team assessed the data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s GOES-16 satellite. This satellite is embedded with a lightning mapper that monitors over one million bolts on a daily basis. This analysis determined that the length of the bolt was 515 miles.

Know How a Megaflash is Measured

With the advancements in satellites, the lightning mappers have become an accurate source of measuring lightning. Previously, ground-based radio networks did the work. As mentioned on Space.com, according to Michael Peterson, Georgia Tech Research Institute, “Adding continuous measurements from geostationary orbit was a major advance”. We are now at a point where most of the global megalfash hotspots are covered by a geostationary satellite, and data processing techniques have improved to properly represent flashes in the vast quantity of observational data at all scales”.

Typically, these megaflashes are rare and are generated from less than one percent of the thunderstorms. These megaflashes are mainly a result of a 14-hour churn or more.

To conclude, as mentioned on Space.com, Cerveny stated, “Those conditions aren’t much rare though. And, as our lightning mapping satellites curate new data, the potential megaflashes are expected to be visible. Likewise, there is a possibility that megaflashes, even larger in length, exist. Over time, they will also be observed.

Astronomers found that a new rogue planet hides in the archival data that was gathered by the Hubble Space Telescope with the help of Albert Einstein and the happening of the events by chance, leading to success. These planets are also known as free-floating planets and do not orbit a star. These are just ejected from their home systems because of the planetary interactions. As they lack a host star, it is difficult to detect them by transit. However, the astronomers use microlensing with gravity, Einstein’s 1915 theory-based phenomenon of general relativity, in which massive objects warp space and bend light from the background stars.

Einstein’s Theory Helps Detect Hidden Rogue Planet

According to As per Przemek Mroz, a professor at the University of Warsaw free free-floating planets don’t orbit any star and drift alone through the galaxy. In order to find such objects, we need to use the technique of gravitational microlensing. At the time of using this technique, the light of the background star gets magnified temporarily. The physicists estimate the mass of the object by analysing the properties of the event.

The newly found event of microlensing, OGLE-2023-BLG-0524, was seen by Hubble on May 22, 2023. Observed by KMTnet, the event only lasted for eight hours and was discovered in the Galactic bulge by the OGLE survey. The team ruled out the presence of a host star; however, very nearby elements can’t be excluded completely.

Microlensing Event Reveals Free-Floating Planet in Hubble Data

The lens and source are more relative to each other; the physicists confirm the status of the object over time. The movement of 5 milliseconds per year could take 10 years to resolve with the recent instruments.

Hubble’s data from 1997 let the scientists rule out the bright host stars. Mroz said that if the lens were a bright star, we would have observed it, but we could not. This absence evoked 25%-48% of the possible stellar companions. This research is available on arXiv.