China has launched a new resupply mission to its module and the astronauts and space station to which it is connected in orbit above the Earth, sending food, fuel, scientific gear, and updated spacesuits. The Long March 7 rocket, taking it aloft, took off from the Wenchang Satellite Launch Centre on Hainan Island at 5:34 p.m. EDT July 14 (5:34 a.m. China Standard Time July 15), carrying the Tianzhou 9 cargo spacecraft. The vehicle is carrying about 7.2 tons (6.5 metric tons) of supplies to support the three taikonauts currently on the station for the ongoing Shenzhou 20 crewed mission.

China Enhances Tiangong Station with New Spacesuits and Fitness Gear in Tianzhou 9 Mission

As per a report by China Global Television Network (CGTN), the cargo includes two new spacesuits that should last three to four years and allow for up to 20 spacewalks, rather than 15 for the old generation. Also along for the ride is a core muscle training device meant to boost the station’s gym for astronauts with better tools to fight muscle atrophy in microgravity conditions. The report emphasised that these improvements are key to ensuring crew health during long-duration missions.

Tianzhou 9 marks the ninth cargo launch China has executed for its human spaceflight program since 2017. The first such spacecraft docked with Tiangong 2, a prototype lab that tested critical technologies ahead of the current space station’s development. Subsequent missions have supplied either the fully assembled Tiangong station or its core module, Tianhe, which was launched in April 2021.

Launched in October 2022, the Tiangong space station, a 3-module space station, is a significant step in China’s independent space ambitions. And while its mass is but 20 percent of what the International Space Station allotted to its construction, Chinese officials have signalled plans for growing the outpost, possibly boosting its stature in low Earth orbit activities worldwide.

Cargo deliveries like Tianzhou 9 are essential to keeping Tiangong in business and the Chinese space program’s long-term human presence in space running. Thanks to improvements in equipment, preparations, and life support, the nation looks prepared to further cement its place in orbital science and discovery.

Delivering a fresh jolt to a field recently rocked by controversy, astrophysicists have discovered the most massive collision yet of a pair of black holes that created another black hole, an event so powerful that it shook the universe in ripples of gravitational waves. Named GW231123, the event was detected on 23 November 2023 by the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA (LVK) collaboration during its fourth observing run. That event was two huge black holes — 100 and 140 times the mass of the Sun — slamming into one another to create a new black hole of 225 solar masses. The mass alone and its spinning now pose a problem for long-held notions about how black holes form in the cosmos.

Unprecedented Black Hole Merger Defies Stellar Models, Hints at Complex Cosmic Origins

As per a report by the LVK team, these black holes far exceed the sizes permitted by standard stellar evolution models. “Black holes this massive are forbidden through standard models,” mentioned LVK researcher Mark Hannam. One possible explanation is that both black holes were the products of earlier mergers, resulting in their unprecedented mass. Compounding the mystery, at least one of the black holes appears to have spun at near the maximum rate allowed by general relativity, making the signal extremely difficult to interpret.

Before this, the record for the most massive merger stood with GW190521, producing a 140-solar-mass black hole. GW231123 now surpasses that significantly. “This pushes the limits of our detection instruments and theoretical tools,” noted LVK member Sophie Bini from Caltech. Unusual features of the signal were unveiled on 14 July in Glasgow at the 16th Edoardo Amaldi Conference and the 24th International Conference on General Relativity and Gravitation.

The LVK detectors — the LIGO instruments in the United States, Virgo in Italy and KAGRA in Japan — have seen more than 300 black hole crashes since the fall of 2015. The high mass and fast spin of GW231123 are, however, uncommon. Black holes possess these features because they are not the products of run-of-the-mill deaths of the stars but carry with them a rather colourful history — a history of past encounters, maybe collisions.

LVK experts think it will take years to parse all the meanings of GW231123. “The merger is the most likely explanation, but there might be more complex scenarios that can give an answer,” team member Gregorio Carullo remarked. The event has become, already, a cornerstone observation within the nascent field of gravitational-wave astronomy, potentially redrawing the boundaries of our current understanding of black hole evolution.

The Parker Solar Probe has truly achieved a historic milestone in solar exploration. In July 2025, NASA released the closest-ever images of the Sun, taken just 3.8 million miles from its surface. On Dec. 24, 2024, Parker flew 3.8 million miles from the Sun’s surface, entering the outer corona. During this pass, Parker’s Wide-Field Imager (WISPR) snapped the nearest-ever photographs of the Sun, showing the Sun’s corona and the solar wind in unprecedented detail. These images reveal new solar eruptions (coronal mass ejections) and magnetic structures, transporting us into the Sun’s dynamic atmosphere and helping scientists improve space weather forecasts.

Historic Flyby Delivers Unprecedented Solar Views

According to NASA, in the record-breaking Dec. 24, 2024 flyby, Parker’s WISPR snapped the closest-ever images of the Sun’s atmosphere as the probe skimmed just 3.8 million miles (6.1 million km) from the star. NASA released video and still frames showing the Sun’s corona and freshly released solar wind. The new frames reveal, for the first time in high resolution, features like the heliospheric current sheet (the magnetic boundary that flips polarity) and collisions of multiple coronal mass ejections (CMEs). As imaging scientist Angelos Vourlidas notes, the CMEs are “basically piling up on top of one another” in these views.

Insights into Solar Wind and Space Weather

NASA scientists say these images mark a major advance in understanding how the Sun drives space weather. Associate Administrator Nicky Fox notes that Parker’s close-up view lets us see “where space weather threats to Earth begin,” providing data to significantly improve forecasting.

The WISPR images also confirm key theories about the solar wind: Parker found there are two kinds of slow wind — one emerging from helmet streamer loops and one from coronal holes — helping pin down their origins. Project scientist Nour Rawafi says solving this “big unknown” is now within reach, with Parker bringing us “closer than ever to uncovering their origins”. These breakthroughs will help protect astronauts, satellites and technology from dangerous solar storms.