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Amazon founder Jeff Bezos announced earlier this week that he will be flying to space aboard his space company Blue Origin’s New Shephard vehicle on July 20, accompanied by his brother Mark Bezos. This was supposed to make senior Bezos the first ‘space billionaire’ to actually go into space. But it now seems that another ‘space billionaire’ is eyeing the ‘first’ in this modern space race. A report citing sources says that Virgin Galactic is planning to send Richard Branson, the founder of the Virgin Group, on a suborbital flight aboard his space company Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity SpaceShipTwo rocket plane in the first week of July (the 4th of July weekend). How is that for a celebration?

But Virgin Group, as reported by Parabolic Arc, has said that the flight was still subject to obtaining an operator’s licence from the authorities at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Branson’s flight, if everything goes as per the plan, will take off at least two weeks before that off Bezos.

A company spokesman reportedly said in a statement on Tuesday that the company was still in the process of analysing data from their successful May 22 flight, adding that they expect to complete the final test flights this summer through to early fall.

“At this time, we have not determined the date of our next flight. An objective from the last flight was to collect data to be used for the final two verification reports that are required as part of the current FAA commercial reusable spacecraft operator’s licence,” the spokesperson was quoted as saying in the report.

The report says Virgin Galactic is said to have announced the plan for Branson’s flight as a response to Blue Origin’s scheduled July 20 flight, but that they had been planning it even before the announcement from Bezos’s company came on June 7.

As for Bezos and Blue Origin, the aerospace company he founded in 2000, the launch calendar has been marked. The New Shephard vehicle scheduled to carry the Bezos brothers — and the winner of an online auction for a spare seat — has flown at least 15 times in the past, but with nobody aboard it.

Bezos also shared an Instagram post telling his followers why he decided to fly to space. In the post, he wrote, “Ever since I was five years old, I’ve dreamed of traveling to space. On July 20th, I will take that journey with my brother. The greatest adventure, with my best friend.”

The third person to accompany Jeff and Mark Bezos still has to go through a bidding war. A blog post on Blue Origin’s website says the bidding for the space seat will conclude with a live online auction on June 12. Those interested in bidding in the live auction have to register by June 10. The blog added that so far “nearly 6,000 participants from 143 countries” had bid.

New Shepard will launch on July 20, reach Karman Line at 100-km mean sea-level, and then descend back to Earth, all in a matter of 11 minutes. The Karman Line is the recognised boundary between Earth’s atmosphere and space.


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A Planet with a Death Wish: How HIP 67522 b Is Forcing Its Star to Explode

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A Planet with a Death Wish: How HIP 67522 b Is Forcing Its Star to Explode

Scientists have caught a planet with a death wish, which is an alien world, orbiting very near to its star, and so speedy that it is causing the star to go to its death with bursting explosions. HIP 67522 b is the planet, and it is of the same size as Jupiter with a seven-day orbit around its host star. These orbits are disturbing the magnetic field of the star and causing enormous blasting eruptions to blow back the planet and make it wrinkled. This is the first time that a planet is influencing the host star, as the astronomers reported in a study published on July 2, 2025, in the Journal Nature.

A Planet with a Death Wish: HIP 67522 b’s Fiery Orbit

As per the study by NASA, Ekaterina Ilin, the first author of the study and an astrophysicist at the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy, said that the planet was observed to trigger the energetic flares. It has been predicted by the scientists that the waves are setting off explosions that are going to happen.

Magnetic Chaos: Planet Triggering Star’s Explosions

Stars are burning plasma, gigantic balls with charged particles or ions that move on their surface to form strong magnetic fields. Since the magnetic fields cannot cross each other, sometimes these field knots suddenly snap to launch flares of radiation known as solar flares, which are often accompanied by coronal mass ejections, also known as surface plasma.

As many planets have a magnetic field, scientists have long wondered whether the planets, having close orbits near their stars, might disturb these strong magnetic fields and trigger the explosions. For years, scientists have observed whether the planets can influence the magnetic behaviour of their host stars, especially the ones that are close to their orbits.

A New Era of Star-Planet Relationship Studies

A planet with a strong magnetic field orbits around a star which has a delicate magnetic field, then it might be bombarded with solar radiation. These interactions helps int he study of star and planet bond and further the evolution of atmospher and magnetic field.

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Pebble Halo Smart Ring Launched in India With In-Built Digital Display: Price, Features



Dolby Cinema Debuts in Pune Featuring Dolby Vision With 4K Laser Projection, Dolby Atmos

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Webb Telescope Spots Possible Jellyfish Galaxy 12 Billion Light-Years Away

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Webb Telescope Spots Possible Jellyfish Galaxy 12 Billion Light-Years Away

Astronomers have discovered a new “jellyfish” galaxy about 12 billion light-years away using the James Webb Space Telescope. It appears to have tentacle-like streams of gas and stars trailing off one side, a signature feature of jellyfish galaxies. These galaxies develop such trails via ram pressure stripping as they move through dense cluster environments, triggering star formation in the stripped gas. The find was made by Ian Roberts of Waterloo University, and details are described in a preprint on arXiv. More analysis is needed to confirm the classification, but early signs strongly suggest this object is indeed a jellyfish galaxy.

What Are Jellyfish Galaxies?

According to NASA, jellyfish galaxies are so named because of the long, trailing streams of gas and young stars that extend from one side of the galaxy. This phenomenon occurs when a galaxy moves rapidly through the hot, dense gas in a cluster, and ram pressure strips material away. The stripped gas forms a wake behind the galaxy, and this wake often lights up with bursts of new star formation. At the same time, the process can deprive the galaxy’s core of gas, potentially slowing star formation in the galaxy’s center.

Because the jellyfish stage is short-lived on cosmic timescales, astronomers rarely catch galaxies in this act. Studying jellyfish galaxies gives scientists insight into how dense environments affect galaxy evolution and star formation.

Discovery and Future Research

The researchers caution that the galaxy’s apparent “tentacles” may partly be an artifact of the imaging method. If confirmed, this object (COSMOS2020-635829) would be the most distant known jellyfish galaxy, offering a rare glimpse of how ram pressure stripping and cluster-driven quenching operated in the early cosmos. As the study authors note, finding a jellyfish at z>1 reinforces the idea that these environmental effects were already at work near the peak of cosmic star formation.

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Mars Dust Devils May Spark Lightning, Might Pose Risks to Rovers: Study

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Mars Dust Devils May Spark Lightning, Might Pose Risks to Rovers: Study

Dust devils on Mars – swirling columns of dust and air that often scour the Red Planet’s surface – may be crackling with electricity, a new computer-modeling study suggests. Researchers led by Varun Sheel simulated how Mars’s dry atmosphere and frictional dust collisions charge up grains inside a vortex. They found these fields could grow so strong that brief lightning-like discharges might occur. This electrification is a concern for surface missions, since charged dust could cling to rover wheels, solar panels and antennas, blocking sunlight and interfering with communications.

Formation and Features of Martian Dust Devils

According to the study, dust devils form when the Sun heats Mars’s surface, causing warm air to rise and spin into vortices. Colder air rushes inward along the ground, stretching the rising column upward and whipping dust high into the sky. Because Mars has lower gravity and a thinner atmosphere than Earth, its dust devils can tower much higher, three times larger than storms on Earth. NASA’s Viking mission first detected Martian dust devils; later rovers like Curiosity and Perseverance have filmed them sweeping across the dusty plains. These whirlwinds clean off solar panels – as happened with Spirit in 2005 – but more often they stir up fine dust that can coat instruments.

Electrification and Risks to Rovers

Dust grains in Martian whirlwinds can pick up charge through collisions (a triboelectric effect). Sheel’s models predict that this charge separation can create strong electric fields inside a dust devil. These fields could even exceed Mars’s atmospheric breakdown threshold (around 25 kV/m), enough to spark lightning in the vortex. NASA’s Perseverance rover recorded what appears to be a small triboelectric discharge when a dust devil passed overhead.

Even without lightning, any static buildup is problematic. As planetary scientist Yoav Yair notes, “Electrified dust will adhere to conducting surfaces such as wheels, solar panels and antennas,” potentially reducing sunlight reaching panels and jamming communications. Rovers may need new design features or procedures to handle this unusual Martian weather.

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