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Having made a career out of playing an explorer of the cosmos, William Shatner – Captain James Kirk of Star Trek fame – did it for real on Wednesday, becoming at age 90 the oldest person in space aboard a rocketship flown by billionaire Jeff Bezos’s company Blue Origin, an experience the actor called profound.

Shatner was one of four passengers to journey for 10 minutes and 17 seconds to the edge of space aboard the white fully autonomous 60-foot-tall (18.3 meters-tall) New Shepard spacecraft, which took off from Blue Origin’s launch site about 20 miles (32km) outside the rural west Texas town of Van Horn.

The crew capsule returned to the Texas desert from the suborbital flight under parachutes, raising a cloud of dust. Shatner emerged gingerly from the capsule in the desert silence, appearing reflective as the others celebrated by cheering and popping champagne bottles.

Bezos was on hand and embraced Shatner, who was wearing a cap and a blue flight suit with the company’s name in white letters on one sleeve.

“What you have given me is the most profound experience I can imagine,” Shatner told Bezos as the two chatted for several minutes. “I am so filled with emotion about what just happened.”

The all-civilian crew experienced a few minutes of weightlessness, having traveled about 65.8 miles (106 km) above the Earth’s surface – higher than the internationally recognised boundary of space known as the Karman Line, about 62 miles (100km) above Earth.

It marked the second space tourism flight for Blue Origin, the company Bezos – the Amazon founder and current executive chairman – founded two decades ago. Bezos flew aboard the first one in July.

Shatner – who embodied the promise of space travel in the classic 1960s TV series Star Trek and seven subsequent films – said he had prepared himself for experiencing weightlessness, but was stunned at the dramatic contrast of the beauty of the blue Earth and the blackness of space.

“You’re looking into blackness, into black ugliness,” Shatner said. “And you look down, there’s the blue down there – and the black up there – and it’s just, there is Mother Earth.”

“This is life and that’s death, and in an instant, you know – whoa – that’s death,” Shatner said. “That’s what I saw.”

“Is that the way death is?” Shatner asked.

Before the flight, each astronaut rang a bell and then entered the capsule atop the rocketship, with Bezos closing the hatch. Winds were light and skies were clear for the launch, conducted after two delays totaling roughly 45 minutes.

Joining Shatner were former NASA engineer Chris Boshuizen, clinical research entrepreneur Glen de Vries and Blue Origin vice president and engineer Audrey Powers.

‘Beam me up’

Shatner, who turned 90 in March, has been acting since the 1950s and remains busy with entertainment projects and fan conventions. He is best known for starring as Captain James Tiberius Kirk of the starship Enterprise on Star Trek.

During the opening credits of each episode of the series, he called space “the final frontier” and promised “to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilisations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.”

“Beam me up,” Shatner’s character would tell the Enterprise’s chief engineer Scotty, played by James Doohan, in a memorable catchphrase when he needed to be transported to the starship.

Shatner’s participation helped generate publicity for Blue Origin as it competes against two billionaire-backed rivals – Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic - to attract customers willing to pay large sums to experience spaceflight.

The flight represented another important day for the nascent space tourism industry that, according to UBS, could reach an annual value of $3 billion (roughly Rs. 22,590 crores) in a decade.

Blue Origin had a successful debut space tourism flight on July 20, with Bezos and three others aboard on a trip lasting 10 minutes and 10 seconds. On that flight, pioneering female aviator Wally Funk at age 82 became the oldest person to reach space. The previous record was set in 1998 when pioneering astronaut John Glenn returned to space as a 77-year-old US senator.

Branson inaugurated his space tourism service on July 11, riding along on a suborbital flight with six others. SpaceX debuted its space tourism business by flying the first all-civilian crew to reach Earth’s orbit in a three-day mission ending September 18.

In his annual address to world leaders last month, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres criticised “billionaires joyriding to space while millions go hungry on earth.”

Asked about Shatner’s flight, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said on Wednesday that Guterres “very much continues to believe what he said in the General Assembly.”

© Thomson Reuters 2021

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Scientists Reportedly Found a Potential Sign of Life on a Distant Planet: What You Need to Know

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12 hours ago

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April 25, 2025

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Scientists Reportedly Found a Potential Sign of Life on a Distant Planet: What You Need to Know

A team of astronomers have reportedly discovered biological activity outside the solar system. The scientists have revealed that the distant planet, named K2-18 b, comprises more than one molecule in its atmosphere that potentially has been generated by living things. However, this revelation has made a sensation among astronomers across the world, more specifically for those who study biosignatures in exoplanet atmospheres.

 

According to report by Nature.com, K2-18 b is a planet that is smaller than Neptune. It lies at a distance of 38 parsecs above the Earth.

About the Discovery

Dimethyl sulphide (DMS) has been discovered by scientists from the University of Cambridge, UK, in the atmosphere of K2-18b. The DMS molecule is generated by living organisms, which has raised speculations about the potential for life on this distant planet. The scientists used the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to implement research. Also, the discovery happened when a molecule was detected in the starlight filtering through the planet’s atmosphere. These chemicals have raised curiosity amongst astronomers as they are generated by living organisms on the planet Earth.

This discovery first came into the light in the year 2023. However, the new revelations have been made as a result of the follow-up on similar findings. This time, the scientists used different wavelengths and a research strategy to support their discovery of molecules on the distant planet. .

Significance of this Discovery

For decades, scientists have been engrossed in studying life beyond Earth. Now that the pieces of evidence are hinting towards the potential existence of DMS or DMDS on K2-18 b. If proven, this will be a historic win for the scientists. Furthermore, this discovery is a step towards understanding planets from a broader perspective. Overall, more than 5,800 planets have been detected throughout the Universe.

Reason Behind Uncertainty by Other Researchers

The scientists are sceptical about this discovery as they doubt whether DMS or DMDS are really present or is K2-18 b is barren. While some of the researchers are not confident about the discovery, the expert team of scientists from the University of Cambridge, UK, is working extensively to provide a proven base to support their findings.

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Space Veteran Astronaut Returns to Earth to Celebrate his Birthday on April 20

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April 25, 2025

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Space Veteran Astronaut Returns to Earth to Celebrate his Birthday on April 20

The oldest veteran astronaut from NASA landed from the International Space Station on his 70th birthday. Donald Pettit, the U.S astronaut, reached Earth after seven months with his crew members Aleksey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner, two Russian cosmonauts. The spacecraft Soyuz MS-26 launched on September 11, 2024 and came back to Earth on Saturday, April 20, 2025, at 6:20 AM local time in the steppes of Kazakhstan. He has made a remarkable history by landing on his birthday. He is a renowned name in the space world and has completed 13 spacewalk hours.

Legacy of Pettit

According to reported by space.com , This was the fourth flight of Pettit and Ovchinin, but the second for Vagner. Pettit worked for 590 days, Ovchinin for 595 days, and Vagner for 416 days in space until now, counted after this landing. This trio orbited Earth 3,520 times and finished this 93.3 million-mile journey throughout their mission. NASA astronaut and Expedition 73 flight engineer Nichole Ayers wrote on X on Saturday, saying goodbye today to Donald Pettit. It’s a bittersweet moment as Pettit had an amazing mission by inspiring many individuals while being here.

Back to Earth

The trio began their arrival at 5:57 PM EDT on Saturday, as the Soyuz spacecraft undocked from the station. The vehicle had deorbited burn for around two and a half hours, shedding its orbit, leaving the gumdrop-shaped capsule to bring all of them home. Anne McCain, Ayers, and Jonny Kim, together with JAXA astronaut and Commander of expedition 73, Takuya Onishi, Sergey Ryzhikov and Alexey Zubritsky, are the ones who are still in space.

Soyuz Spacecraft MS-26

It marked a significant spaceflight to the ISS (International Space Station), from its launch to landing, as it transported three well-experienced crew members, including Donald Pettit, Ivan Vagner, and Aleksey Ovchinin, to space for long-term microgravity research in the field of biology, physics, and material science. The spacecraft also docked as an emergency space vehicle for up to 220 days.

Pettit’s Achievements

Many people who follow the science of opportunity demonstrations and photographs of Earth by him know that he is a man of great contributions. Pettit has also helped to oversee the departure of Spacex’s Crew-9 mission on Dragon Freedom, along with Crew-10 on Dragon Endurance and the Cygnus departure of a cargo ship. He has also been a flight engineer for Expedition 30/31 in 2012. Pettit has made major contributions by discovering g-cups to drink coffee in space and polarised photography from space.

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New Study Finds Hercules-Corona Borealis Great Wall Bigger and Nearer Than Thought

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April 23, 2025

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New Study Finds Hercules-Corona Borealis Great Wall Bigger and Nearer Than Thought

Astronomers have revealed that the Hercules-Corona Borealis Great Wall, a massive network of galaxies, might be bigger than they realised. By mapping the cosmos with gamma-ray bursts (GRBs)—the brightest explosions in the universe—astronomers found that this structure is even bigger than previously estimated. Surprisingly, portions of it also lie significantly closer to Earth than previously believed, challenging fundamental assumptions about how the universe is structured and evolves.
This cosmic structure was first observed in 2014 — a dense galaxy forming a filament of a supercluster.

A new study now extends the researchers’ previous work, but with a wider GRB sample. Hakkila and Zsolt Bagoly, authors of the study, have refined the measurements. They detected a number of relatively nearby GRBs in their sample. The evidence also shows the Great Wall is larger and wider than previously predicted.

Gamma-Ray Bursts Expose Structure Too Large for Current Models

According to a Space.com report, the GRBs figure prominently in the early discovery and more recent growth of the Hercules–Corona Borealis Great Wall. These explosive outbursts — from either collapsing massive stars or colliding neutron stars — produce powerful jets that can be spotted over cosmological distances. Hakkila told the publication that GRBs act as another bright beacon for identifying galaxies, even those too faint to see directly. Because of their brightness, scientists can follow matter throughout the universe more distinctly than ever.

The Great Wall, over 10 billion light-years long, challenges the cosmological principle of uniform universe appearance. Its massive size indicates gaps in current theories and implies that the universe’s formation time was insufficient for such massive structures.

THESEUS May Reveal Full Scale of Cosmic Great Wall

NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Burst observations reveal 542 GRB events, but more data is needed to fully understand the Great Wall’s scope due to misidentified origins and sparse sampling. Hakkila points toward the upcoming ESA mission THESEUS — the Transient High Energy Sources and Early Universe Surveyor — as the next major leap.

The mission aims to dramatically expand the catalogue of known GRBs, particularly at extreme distances. “It could finally provide the observational leverage needed to map the Hercules–Corona Borealis Great Wall to its full extent,” Hakkila told Space.com, emphasising its role in refining our understanding of the universe’s large-scale structure.

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