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Scientists Discover Hidden ‘Third Eye’ in Human Skull and Why It Exists

Did you know humans have a 'third eye'?Unlike the tuatara, a reptile from New Zealand with a visible functioning third eye located on the top of its head, the human third eye - called the pineal gland - isn't visible as it is located deep within the brain.The function of the pineal gland is directing how our body respond to light and dark.But the question is, where exactly did this gland come from?A new hypothesis published in the journal Current Biology seeks to answer this, and it appears our third eye is derived from some of our ancient ancestors and could hold the key to understanding how human sight has evolved.For context it's important to know that the eyes of vertebrates are built differently compared to the rest of the animal kingdom.Typically, for most animals on Earth the light-detecting cells in their lateral eyes are a part of an ancient family, called rhabdomeric photoreceptors. Then for the non-visual jobs like tracking day length and sensing overall light levels, this is carried out by a second family called ciliary photoreceptors, as per BBC's Science Focus.It's a different story for vertebrates - humans, fish, birds, and reptiles - as our eyes are built from ciliary photoreceptors at the input end, wired into neurons of rhabdomeric origin at the output end.And no one know how this happened.Prof Thomas Baden, a neuroscientist at the University of Sussex and co-author of the new study, questioned “What is the original solution to vision, and to what extent have different species just copied or modified it to make it their own?”He further pondered if there were any patterns, and what is the original eye.To get to the bottom of this, Baden and his researchers had to look back to 575 million years ago for a certain ancestor - a far cry from what we look like today (we're talking a small worm-like creature located on the seafloor).This creature would've have two lateral eyes for navigation, plus an eye on the top of its head to monitor the light levels, and to help with balance.From that point, Baden and his team's hypothesis is that some kind of change occurred where the ancestors that would evolved into vertebrates began to burrow down in sediment filter-feeding on particles floating past, they no longer needed to navigate.As a result, the lateral eyes were lost due to them no longer being useful and taking to much energy to sustain.What was left were sensors and photoreceptors can could still indicate direction and light level (difference between day and night).“The need to know what time of day it is, or where is up and down if you're in deep water. That doesn't go away,” says Baden. “So, we speculate that that's when we lost the original side eyes, but we kept the original median eye, because that's what it's good for.”Due to this burrowing, scientists reckon this explains why vertebrates have a different structure - many animals still have their lateral eyes, while ours were lost.Thanks to evolution, some of the ancestors didn't remain burrowed in sediment but instead reverted to the open water as free-swimming filter feeders.This meant they needed to be able to navigate, and so the new eyes included both ciliary and rhabdomeric cell types as only the photoreceptive organ was only available matter to be built from.So what does this mean?It means for the retina - the layer inside the back of your eye that detects light - an earlier precursor version were already made in the media eye, with us intermitting the intricate features that make up the eyes we have today.That being said, Baden is hesitant to call the median an an eyes - here's why.“The thing on top of the head originally is not one eye; it's more like a series of sensors, multiple patches of photoreceptors,” he explained Therefore, "the retina predates the eye, if that makes sense. I always thought that was a cute tagline."Elsewhere, a different study recently published in Nature suggests our ancestor had four eyes with lenses and retinas at one point in time.Given the sheer scale of evolution history (around half a billion years), it remains unclear if these scientific theories are correct - although Baden believes we'll soon get to the bottom of this.“The central testable bits that we've put forward – I think with some funding and a few years – you can get a yes-no answer,” he said.

30-05-2026 12:34

Scientists Discover Hidden ‘Third Eye’ in Human Skull and Why It Exists

Did you know humans have a 'third eye'?Unlike the tuatara, a reptile from New Zealand with a visible functioning third eye located on the top of its head, the human third eye - called the pineal gland - isn't visible as it is located deep within the brain.The function of the pineal gland is directing how our body respond to light and dark.But the question is, where exactly did this gland come from?A new hypothesis published in the journal Current Biology seeks to answer this, and it appears our third eye is derived from some of our ancient ancestors and could hold the key to understanding how human sight has evolved.For context it's important to know that the eyes of vertebrates are built differently compared to the rest of the animal kingdom.Typically, for most animals on Earth the light-detecting cells in their lateral eyes are a part of an ancient family, called rhabdomeric photoreceptors. Then for the non-visual jobs like tracking day length and sensing overall light levels, this is carried out by a second family called ciliary photoreceptors, as per BBC's Science Focus.It's a different story for vertebrates - humans, fish, birds, and reptiles - as our eyes are built from ciliary photoreceptors at the input end, wired into neurons of rhabdomeric origin at the output end.And no one know how this happened.Prof Thomas Baden, a neuroscientist at the University of Sussex and co-author of the new study, questioned “What is the original solution to vision, and to what extent have different species just copied or modified it to make it their own?”He further pondered if there were any patterns, and what is the original eye.To get to the bottom of this, Baden and his researchers had to look back to 575 million years ago for a certain ancestor - a far cry from what we look like today (we're talking a small worm-like creature located on the seafloor).This creature would've have two lateral eyes for navigation, plus an eye on the top of its head to monitor the light levels, and to help with balance.From that point, Baden and his team's hypothesis is that some kind of change occurred where the ancestors that would evolved into vertebrates began to burrow down in sediment filter-feeding on particles floating past, they no longer needed to navigate.As a result, the lateral eyes were lost due to them no longer being useful and taking to much energy to sustain.What was left were sensors and photoreceptors can could still indicate direction and light level (difference between day and night).“The need to know what time of day it is, or where is up and down if you're in deep water. That doesn't go away,” says Baden. “So, we speculate that that's when we lost the original side eyes, but we kept the original median eye, because that's what it's good for.”Due to this burrowing, scientists reckon this explains why vertebrates have a different structure - many animals still have their lateral eyes, while ours were lost.Thanks to evolution, some of the ancestors didn't remain burrowed in sediment but instead reverted to the open water as free-swimming filter feeders.This meant they needed to be able to navigate, and so the new eyes included both ciliary and rhabdomeric cell types as only the photoreceptive organ was only available matter to be built from.So what does this mean?It means for the retina - the layer inside the back of your eye that detects light - an earlier precursor version were already made in the media eye, with us intermitting the intricate features that make up the eyes we have today.That being said, Baden is hesitant to call the median an an eyes - here's why.“The thing on top of the head originally is not one eye; it's more like a series of sensors, multiple patches of photoreceptors,” he explained Therefore, "the retina predates the eye, if that makes sense. I always thought that was a cute tagline."Elsewhere, a different study recently published in Nature suggests our ancestor had four eyes with lenses and retinas at one point in time.Given the sheer scale of evolution history (around half a billion years), it remains unclear if these scientific theories are correct - although Baden believes we'll soon get to the bottom of this.“The central testable bits that we've put forward – I think with some funding and a few years – you can get a yes-no answer,” he said.

30-05-2026 12:34

Concerning scenario: Earth’s population could decline for these reasons...

Scientists are warning of a possible major decline in the world’s population in the coming decades which in the “worst case scenarios” could reach a halving of the current population by 2064 due to multiple factors.The Earth’s population currently stands at about 8.3 billion people. However scientists from the University of Milan present hypothetical scenarios in a recent study that rely on mathematical models simulating the future of population growth under severe environmental and economic pressures.The researchers explain that their study is not intended to provide direct predictions of the future but rather to test how population growth would be affected if the Earth’s “carrying capacity” the maximum number of people that can be sustainably supported were to drop suddenly and sharply in one scenario to as low as about two billion people.According to the mathematical model used in the study published in Chaos Solitons and Fractals such a sharp decline in carrying capacity could lead to a rapid decrease in the global population potentially reaching nearly half within the coming decades.The research is based on an analysis of population data spanning more than 12,000 years aiming to understand patterns of human growth throughout history from the slow growth periods of ancient times to the rapid population surges of the modern era.The scientists note that the current overall population growth trend remains relatively stable and does not indicate an imminent collapse but they warn that sudden changes in environmental or health conditions could drastically reshape this trajectory.Experts caution that such a collapse could result from climate breakdown a global pandemic international conflict or severe resource shortages.In a related context the study also discusses what is known in demography as the “doomsday scenario” proposed since the 1960s which predicted population growth reaching unsustainable levels. However the global decline in fertility rates has so far helped avoid those projections.Nevertheless recent data shows that fertility rates in several countries have fallen below the population replacement level of about 2.1 children per woman. The rate is 1.41 in the United Kingdom and 1.62 in the United States raising concerns about future labor shortages and increasing pressures on elderly care systems.Some experts warn that continuing this trend could worsen economic and social challenges which business figures and analysts including Elon Musk interpret as one of the most serious long term threats to human civilization’s stability amid declining global birth rates.

27-05-2026 15:40

Starship Test Flight Marks Major Milestone for SpaceX

SpaceX completed a largely successful test flight of its next-generation Starship rocket on Friday, deploying a clutch of mock satellites and executing a controlled splashdown in the Indian Ocean in a high-stakes debut of the newly upgraded vehicle as Elon Musk's ​company prepares to go public.The latest uncrewed launch of Starship - designed to enable more frequent Starlink satellite launches and to send future NASA missions to the moon - achieved a key milestone for the vehicle following months of testing delays. ‌The outcome could also boost investor confidence ahead of SpaceX's initial public offering next month, expected to be the largest in history.Starship, which SpaceX has spent more than $15 billion developing as a fully reusable spacecraft, is critical to Musk's goals of cutting launch costs, expanding his Starlink business and pursuing ambitions ranging from deep-space exploration to orbital data centers - all factored into his targeted $1.75 trillion IPO valuation.Friday's launch marked SpaceX's 12th test flight of a Starship prototype since 2023 and the first of its V3 iteration, a major upgrade of both the cruise vessel and its Super Heavy booster, as well as the first blast-off from a launch pad specially designed for ​the new rocket.MEANINGFUL STEP FORWARDSpaceX was counting on a successful test flight to reinforce its case that the largest and most powerful rocket ever flown is nearing commercial readiness after years of explosive setbacks and development delays. Friday's test appeared to have ​achieved most of its major objectives.The towering vehicle, consisting of the upper-stage Starship astronaut vessel stacked atop a Super Heavy booster rocket, blasted off around 5:30 p.m. CT (2230 GMT) from SpaceX facilities in Starbase, Texas, ⁠on the Gulf of Mexico near Brownsville.Minutes later, the two stages cleanly separated, leaving the Starship vehicle to soar on to its cruise phase despite the loss of one of its six engines, then release its simulated satellite payload before surviving a fiery atmospheric re-entry and splashdown. ​Its flight lasted just over an hour in all.The lower-stage Super Heavy came down separately in the gulf about six minutes after blast-off, as expected, but the booster rocket failed to complete a planned boost-back burn of its engines after separating from Starship.Musk welcomed the outcome with a ​message posted to his X platform, congratulating his "SpaceX team on an epic first Starship V3 launch & landing!"Kathleen Curlee, a research analyst at Georgetown University's Center for Security and Emerging Technology, hailed the flight as "another meaningful step forward in SpaceX’s broader strategy of building the launch capacity needed to support the company’s expanding ambitions in space."Although the flight encountered "some anomalies," Curlee said, "the test appears to have achieved several key objectives and will provide SpaceX with significant operational and engineering data moving forward."A live SpaceX webcast of the liftoff showed the rocketship, more than 40 stories tall, climbing from the launch tower as the Super Heavy's cluster of 33 Raptor engines ​thundered to life in a ball of flames and billowing clouds of vapor and exhaust.The test ended about 65 minutes later when the Starship vehicle blazed through Earth's atmosphere and landed in the Indian Ocean, nose up as planned, before keeling over in the sea and exploding ​in a fireball, to the raucous cheers of SpaceX employees who gathered to watch the flight webcast.SpaceX said before the launch it would not attempt a safe return landing or recovery of either the booster or the Starship upper stage, even if all else went as planned.During its suborbital cruise phase, Starship ‌successfully released its ⁠payload of 20 mock Starlink satellites one by one, plus two actual modified satellites that scanned the spacecraft's heat shield and transmitted data back to operators on the ground during the vehicle's descent.Given the failure of one of Starship's six engines early in the flight, mission controllers opted not to attempt a planned in-space engine re-ignition before re-entry.But the vehicle did execute a return-landing burn at the very end of its flight, along with several maneuvers deliberately intended to place the spacecraft under maximum stress. Starship completed those moves intact for its controlled final descent.

23-05-2026 12:15

Egypt's Great Pyramid of Giza Built With Sophisticated Quake Resistance

If ever there were a structure built to stand the test of time, it surely would be the Great Pyramid of Giza, a transcendent monument to human imagination and ambition. Since ​being erected during the Old Kingdom period of ancient Egypt, it has stood impassively as time marched on and civilizations rose and fell.Researchers now have discovered one of ‌the reasons for its astonishing durability - it was designed and built with structural features that have helped it withstand the destructive energy of earthquakes since its construction about 4,600 years ago as the tomb of the pharaoh Khufu.The scientists assessed its structural dynamics by using devices called seismometers to record ambient vibrations - continuous subtle background shaking generated by natural forces and human activity - at 37 locations in and around the pyramid. It exhibited a ​remarkably homogeneous and stable structural response to these vibrations despite its size and complexity.The four sides of the pyramid, located in Giza right outside the Egyptian capital Cairo ​and built of massive limestone blocks, each measure about 755 feet (230 meters) at the base, and it covers about 13 acres (5.3 hectares).It originally stood ⁠about 480 feet (147 meters) tall. Natural erosion over time and the removal centuries ago of its smooth outer casing stones for building material left it at its current height of approximately 455 ​feet (138.5 meters). It was the world's tallest structure for some 3,800 years.The scientists identified several characteristics that gave the pyramid earthquake resistance. It has an extremely broad base with low center of ​gravity, highly symmetrical geometry, a gradual reduction in mass toward the top and sophisticated internal design including internal chambers that blunt vibration amplification. It also was constructed on strong limestone bedrock."These elements together create a well-balanced, coherent structure," said seismologist Mohamed ElGabry of the National Research Institute of Astronomy and Geophysics, or NRIAG, in Egypt, lead author of the study published on Thursday in the journal Scientific Reports."Ancient Egyptian builders clearly possessed practical knowledge ​related to stability, foundation behavior, mass distribution and load transfer," NRIAG seismologist and study senior author Asem Salama said.The researchers found that most vibrations recorded within the pyramid had a frequency that ​indicated that mechanical stress was evenly distributed throughout."So while I would hesitate to claim that they intentionally designed the pyramid specifically for earthquake resistance, I do think they developed architectural and geotechnical solutions that naturally ‌produced structures ⁠with exceptional long-term resilience," Salama said.This was learned over time through trial and error, as some flawed pyramids that preceded this one demonstrate.The researchers collected seismic data from various passages and chambers built inside the pyramid, including the primary burial room called the King's Chamber, as well as the surrounding bedrock and soil.They found that vibration amplification increased with elevation inside the pyramid, a normal phenomenon for tall structures. But they observed a reduction in amplification within five special chambers built above the King's Chamber, despite their higher position."This suggests these chambers effectively help dissipate seismic energy and ​protect the King's Chamber - one of the most ​critical areas - from excessive shaking," ElGabry said.The ⁠most recent earthquakes in the region included notable ones in 1847 and 1992, both of which heavily damaged thousands of buildings and the latter of which killed more than 560 people. The pyramid experienced scant damage.It is part of a large complex, alongside other pyramids and the Great ​Sphinx of Giza - all drawing throngs of visitors since ancient times."The Great Pyramid is not only an extraordinary engineering achievement but also a ​profound work of art ⁠and human vision. Its perfect symmetry, monumental scale and elegant proportions create a timeless beauty that continues to inspire awe even after 4,600 years," ElGabry said."Beyond its physical beauty, what impresses me most is the incredible project management and organizational mastery it represents. Building such a monument took approximately 20 years and required sustaining a clear, long-term vision, an extremely complex supply chain and the coordination of tens ⁠of thousands of ​skilled workers, engineers, and administrators," ElGabry said.This would have included managing human resources, training specialized labor forces, ensuring a ​continuous food supply for the workers, and logistics for massive quantities of stone."It reminds us what human civilization is capable of when vision, science, organization and determination come together," ElGabry said."They really did," Salama said, "build 'one for the ages'."

21-05-2026 18:51

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Scientists Discover Hidden ‘Third Eye’ in Human Skull and Why It Exists

Did you know humans have a 'third eye'?Unlike the tuatara, a reptile from New Zealand with a visible functioning third eye located on the top of its head, the human third eye - called the pineal gland - isn't visible as it is located deep within the brain.The function of the pineal gland is directing how our body respond to light and dark.But the question is, where exactly did this gland come from?A new hypothesis published in the journal Current Biology seeks to answer this, and it appears our third eye is derived from some of our ancient ancestors and could hold the key to understanding how human sight has evolved.For context it's important to know that the eyes of vertebrates are built differently compared to the rest of the animal kingdom.Typically, for most animals on Earth the light-detecting cells in their lateral eyes are a part of an ancient family, called rhabdomeric photoreceptors. Then for the non-visual jobs like tracking day length and sensing overall light levels, this is carried out by a second family called ciliary photoreceptors, as per BBC's Science Focus.It's a different story for vertebrates - humans, fish, birds, and reptiles - as our eyes are built from ciliary photoreceptors at the input end, wired into neurons of rhabdomeric origin at the output end.And no one know how this happened.Prof Thomas Baden, a neuroscientist at the University of Sussex and co-author of the new study, questioned “What is the original solution to vision, and to what extent have different species just copied or modified it to make it their own?”He further pondered if there were any patterns, and what is the original eye.To get to the bottom of this, Baden and his researchers had to look back to 575 million years ago for a certain ancestor - a far cry from what we look like today (we're talking a small worm-like creature located on the seafloor).This creature would've have two lateral eyes for navigation, plus an eye on the top of its head to monitor the light levels, and to help with balance.From that point, Baden and his team's hypothesis is that some kind of change occurred where the ancestors that would evolved into vertebrates began to burrow down in sediment filter-feeding on particles floating past, they no longer needed to navigate.As a result, the lateral eyes were lost due to them no longer being useful and taking to much energy to sustain.What was left were sensors and photoreceptors can could still indicate direction and light level (difference between day and night).“The need to know what time of day it is, or where is up and down if you're in deep water. That doesn't go away,” says Baden. “So, we speculate that that's when we lost the original side eyes, but we kept the original median eye, because that's what it's good for.”Due to this burrowing, scientists reckon this explains why vertebrates have a different structure - many animals still have their lateral eyes, while ours were lost.Thanks to evolution, some of the ancestors didn't remain burrowed in sediment but instead reverted to the open water as free-swimming filter feeders.This meant they needed to be able to navigate, and so the new eyes included both ciliary and rhabdomeric cell types as only the photoreceptive organ was only available matter to be built from.So what does this mean?It means for the retina - the layer inside the back of your eye that detects light - an earlier precursor version were already made in the media eye, with us intermitting the intricate features that make up the eyes we have today.That being said, Baden is hesitant to call the median an an eyes - here's why.“The thing on top of the head originally is not one eye; it's more like a series of sensors, multiple patches of photoreceptors,” he explained Therefore, "the retina predates the eye, if that makes sense. I always thought that was a cute tagline."Elsewhere, a different study recently published in Nature suggests our ancestor had four eyes with lenses and retinas at one point in time.Given the sheer scale of evolution history (around half a billion years), it remains unclear if these scientific theories are correct - although Baden believes we'll soon get to the bottom of this.“The central testable bits that we've put forward – I think with some funding and a few years – you can get a yes-no answer,” he said.

30-05-2026 12:34

What causes objects to “disappear” even when they are in front of us?

A professor of anatomy at the University of Bristol, Michelle Spear, has explained how clearly visible objects can remain hidden from our perception despite being in plain sight, highlighting how the brain processes attention and visual information.Spear describes the phenomenon as “inattentional blindness,” a condition in which the brain fails to register certain elements in the environment even when they fall within the field of vision.She notes that a common experience such as searching for keys on a table and failing to find them, only for someone else to immediately spot them, is not merely coincidental but linked to how visual attention operates in the brain.In a blog post published on The Conversation, she explains that everyday object search relies on a process known as “visual search,” but the brain does not process everything we see at once. Instead, it selectively focuses on certain elements while filtering out others.She adds that vision is shaped not only by what the eyes detect but also by the brain’s expectations of what should be seen. When a person is distracted, under pressure, or in a hurry, the brain forms a mental image of the missing object and searches according to that expectation.As a result, if the keys are placed in an unusual position, partially obscured, or surrounded by clutter, they may go unnoticed even when directly in view because they do not match the mental template.Spear further explains that what may seem striking in such cases is that another person seeing the scene for the first time can often locate the object immediately as they are not influenced by prior expectations.She also notes that psychological studies have found slight differences in visual search strategies between men and women. Women tend on average to perform better in cluttered environments, while men may perform better in tasks involving spatial visualization or mental rotation. However, she emphasizes that these differences are not determined by gender alone but are more strongly influenced by factors such as experience, familiarity with the environment, and attentional habits.Spear concludes that visual search is not like viewing a static image but rather a predictive process in which the brain continuously guesses where objects are likely to be, helping to explain why things can “disappear” from sight even when they are right in front of us.

11-05-2026 17:05

Pope Leo XIV goes viral after revealing his hot dog preferences

Pope Leo XIV has revealed his favorite toppings for a hot dog during an informal exchange with worshippers outside the Vatican, in a moment that quickly drew widespread attention on social media, according to the British newspaper Daily Mail.During the conversation, the Pope said he prefers his hot dogs with mustard and ketchup, after being jokingly told by one of those present that he had “eaten more hot dogs than any pope in history,” referencing his origins from Chicago in the United States.He initially replied jokingly, “Just mustard,” before quickly correcting himself: “Mustard and ketchup.”

21-05-2026 11:07

Starship Test Flight Marks Major Milestone for SpaceX

SpaceX completed a largely successful test flight of its next-generation Starship rocket on Friday, deploying a clutch of mock satellites and executing a controlled splashdown in the Indian Ocean in a high-stakes debut of the newly upgraded vehicle as Elon Musk's ​company prepares to go public.The latest uncrewed launch of Starship - designed to enable more frequent Starlink satellite launches and to send future NASA missions to the moon - achieved a key milestone for the vehicle following months of testing delays. ‌The outcome could also boost investor confidence ahead of SpaceX's initial public offering next month, expected to be the largest in history.Starship, which SpaceX has spent more than $15 billion developing as a fully reusable spacecraft, is critical to Musk's goals of cutting launch costs, expanding his Starlink business and pursuing ambitions ranging from deep-space exploration to orbital data centers - all factored into his targeted $1.75 trillion IPO valuation.Friday's launch marked SpaceX's 12th test flight of a Starship prototype since 2023 and the first of its V3 iteration, a major upgrade of both the cruise vessel and its Super Heavy booster, as well as the first blast-off from a launch pad specially designed for ​the new rocket.MEANINGFUL STEP FORWARDSpaceX was counting on a successful test flight to reinforce its case that the largest and most powerful rocket ever flown is nearing commercial readiness after years of explosive setbacks and development delays. Friday's test appeared to have ​achieved most of its major objectives.The towering vehicle, consisting of the upper-stage Starship astronaut vessel stacked atop a Super Heavy booster rocket, blasted off around 5:30 p.m. CT (2230 GMT) from SpaceX facilities in Starbase, Texas, ⁠on the Gulf of Mexico near Brownsville.Minutes later, the two stages cleanly separated, leaving the Starship vehicle to soar on to its cruise phase despite the loss of one of its six engines, then release its simulated satellite payload before surviving a fiery atmospheric re-entry and splashdown. ​Its flight lasted just over an hour in all.The lower-stage Super Heavy came down separately in the gulf about six minutes after blast-off, as expected, but the booster rocket failed to complete a planned boost-back burn of its engines after separating from Starship.Musk welcomed the outcome with a ​message posted to his X platform, congratulating his "SpaceX team on an epic first Starship V3 launch & landing!"Kathleen Curlee, a research analyst at Georgetown University's Center for Security and Emerging Technology, hailed the flight as "another meaningful step forward in SpaceX’s broader strategy of building the launch capacity needed to support the company’s expanding ambitions in space."Although the flight encountered "some anomalies," Curlee said, "the test appears to have achieved several key objectives and will provide SpaceX with significant operational and engineering data moving forward."A live SpaceX webcast of the liftoff showed the rocketship, more than 40 stories tall, climbing from the launch tower as the Super Heavy's cluster of 33 Raptor engines ​thundered to life in a ball of flames and billowing clouds of vapor and exhaust.The test ended about 65 minutes later when the Starship vehicle blazed through Earth's atmosphere and landed in the Indian Ocean, nose up as planned, before keeling over in the sea and exploding ​in a fireball, to the raucous cheers of SpaceX employees who gathered to watch the flight webcast.SpaceX said before the launch it would not attempt a safe return landing or recovery of either the booster or the Starship upper stage, even if all else went as planned.During its suborbital cruise phase, Starship ‌successfully released its ⁠payload of 20 mock Starlink satellites one by one, plus two actual modified satellites that scanned the spacecraft's heat shield and transmitted data back to operators on the ground during the vehicle's descent.Given the failure of one of Starship's six engines early in the flight, mission controllers opted not to attempt a planned in-space engine re-ignition before re-entry.But the vehicle did execute a return-landing burn at the very end of its flight, along with several maneuvers deliberately intended to place the spacecraft under maximum stress. Starship completed those moves intact for its controlled final descent.

23-05-2026 12:15

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