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Lyrids began last week, and Eta Aquariids kicks off on Sunday.
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The Artemis II astronauts are settling back into life on Earth, but we're not quite tired yet of hearing about their amazing journey. There's a new PBS documentary now streaming on YouTube that dives into the Artemis program and the latest efforts to send humans to the moon again. Also this week, NASA shared some awesome images of a comet flying into the sun, the nonprofit American Rivers released its annual report on the most endangered rivers in the US and ESA posted a throwback image of Mars to highlight some interesting changes down on the surface. Here are the science stories that caught our attention this week.
A comet grazes too close to the sunEarlier this month, a recently discovered comet made a close approach to the sun — but it couldn't handle the heat. NASA has shared incredible images of the encounter that took place on April 4, showing the comet exploding into dust as it swings around our star. As NASA notes in a social media post, this was "its first and last observed flyby of the Sun."
The comet, C/2026 A1 (also known as MAPS) was first spotted on January 13 of this year. As it neared the sun, it was observed by a slew of instruments: NASA and ESA's SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory) spacecraft, NASA's STEREO (Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory) and NASA's PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere). This allowed for views of its passage from multiple angles. Seen in a narrow-field coronagraph view captured by SOHO, the comet appears to plunge directly into the sun. But, the wide view from NASA's STEREO shows it actually swinging closely around the sun before breaking a
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Anthropic today launched Claude Design, a new AI product for creating designs, prototypes, slides, and more. Claude Design uses Opus 4.7, a new AI model that was introduced earlier this week.
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 Amazon this week announced plans to acquire Globalstar, the satellite company that powers Apple's satellite features on the iPhone 14 and newer and the Apple Watch Ultra 3. In turn, Amazon announced that it has signed an agreement with Apple to provide satellite connectivity for current and future iPhone and Apple Watch features.
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 Apple plans to release iPad mini and MacBook Pro models with OLED displays this year, according to industry sources who spoke to South Korea's ETNews.
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 It was another busy week of Apple news and rumors, with upcoming Apple product categories like the foldable iPhone and smart glasses featuring prominently in the news.
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 Apple is working on an updated version of the Mac Studio that's expected at some point in 2026, and with supplies of existing machines running low, we thought we'd highlight what's next for Apple's most powerful desktop machine.
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 With the second beta of iOS 26.5, Apple is continuing to prepare for ads in the Apple Maps app. There's a new splash screen in the app that says it will display ads based on approximate location, current search terms, or a view of the map when searching. Ads will also be shown in the "Suggested Places" section that was added in the first beta.
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