It's Wednesday and we have lots of stories for you this morning, starting with a couple of SpaceX rocket launches. SpaceX's 500th Falcon 9 launch, carrying 27 Starlink satellites, broke its own reuse record, according to the FAA.
In a separate launch, SpaceX helped carry a European weather satellite into low-Earth orbit before landing at sea.
In other news, skywatchers in some of the northern U.S. states may be able to see an aurora this evening as a solar storm heads our way, the James Webb Space Telescope is using cosmic archaeology (a rabbit hole I will no doubt be diving into) to unearth more about our Milky Way galaxy, and Martian dust devils may be conjuring up lightning which could threaten NASA's Perseverance rover.
We have all that and more in today's news roundup.
The rocket's first stage came back to Earth as planned about 8.5 minutes later, touching down on the SpaceX drone ship "Just Read the Instructions," which was stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.
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Gilmour Space has stood down from the planned July 2 debut launch of its Eris-1 rocket, citing the desire for "a longer, more flexible launch window for our first test flight." A new target date could be announced next week, according to the company.
We have a full roundup of headlines for your daily read this morning. Astronomers have recently found "fossil galaxies" that have been frozen in for billions of years. These "dinosaurs of the universe" can help experts further understand how these first galaxies formed.
In other news, the first trailer for "Project Hail Mary" is here and is already making some waves as Ryan Gosling attempts to save the Earth from its dying sun (and meets an alien in the process). More stories for today include NASA's Perseverance digging deeper into Mars' dirt to try to find ancient life forms, a surprising mineral found in the asteroid Ryugu and the "Apollo 13" film turning 30. We've got it all here and more.
"Its occurrence is like finding a tropical seed in Arctic ice - indicating either an unexpected local environment or long-distance transport in the early solar system."
NASA's Perseverance rover is digging deeper into Mars' geologic past as it begins grinding into rock surfaces to expose material that could hold clues to the planet's ancient environment and habitability.
"Each new detection brings us closer to understanding the origins of complex organic chemistry in the universe -- and perhaps, the origins of the building blocks of life themselves."
