u/Professor_Moraiarkar

British engineering giant JCB has set a new world land speed record of 406.320 mph with its hydrogen-powered JCB Hydromax.

The car recorded the average speed 400.623 mph in its first run this morning across the Bonneville Salt Flats, and 412.135 mph on its second run, giving the average of 406.320 mph - the fastest a hydrogen internal combustion car has ever travelled.

Driven by Wing Commander Andy Green OBE, the twin engined, 32-foot car completed the two runs required under FIA rules - one in each direction within an hour - comfortably beating the previous FIA-officiated hydrogen internal combustion benchmark of 185.5 mph set by the BMW H2R in 2004. The record is subject to official ratification by the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA), the global governing body for motorsport.

In doing so, JCB Hydromax surpassed the 350.092 mph world diesel land speed record set by JCB Dieselmax — also driven by Green, on the same salt, in August 2006. Twenty years on, JCB has beaten its own benchmark with an engine that produces no CO₂ at the tailpipe.

The speed also exceeds the 303 mph hydrogen fuel cell mark — making JCB Hydromax the fastest hydrogen-powered vehicle of any kind in history.

https://www.jcb.com/en-AE/explore/insight/news/2026/08/hydrogen-powered-jcb-hydromax-sets-406.320-mph-world-land-speed-record/

Image Credit & Copyright: Debra Ceravolo

Venus is now appearing on the celestial stage as Earth's brilliant evening star, performing with the Moon, other wandering planets, and bright stars in western skies. For evening sky gazers on June 17, the celestial beacon rose after sunset close by a young, slender, crescent Moon. But from some locations the Moon could be seen to occult or pass in front of Venus. And from a backyard observatory in southern British Columbia, Canada, the lunar occultation was played out in daylight. This stunning telescopic snapshot captured a scene in dramatically cloudy skies, following Venus' hour long disappearance, as the evening star emerged beyond the bright lunar limb.

Image Credit & Copyright: Logan Carpenter

This complex nebula resides in the star forming region called RCW 57, and besides the iconic monument, to some looks like a flying superhero or a weeping angel. This re-assigned color image showcases dense knots of dark interstellar dust, fields of glowing hydrogen gas ionized by these stars, and great loops of gas expelled by dying stars.

A detailed study of NGC 3576, also known as NGC 3582 and NGC 3584, uncovered at least 33 massive stars in the end stages of formation, and the clear presence of the complex carbon molecules known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). PAHs are thought to be created in the cooling gas of star forming regions, and their development in the Sun's formation nebula five billion years ago may have been an important step in the development of life on Earth.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260720.html

The 570 megapixel Dark Energy Camera captured this image of the Corona Australis Molecular Cloud and its many stellar and gaseous features. The swirls of gas in the new image are reminiscent of Vincent van Gogh's "The Starry Night."

 The Corona Australis Molecular Cloud is one of the nearest star forming regions to Earth. R Coronae Australis, a variable binary system, lights up the orange cloud on the left. Dust lanes, newborn stars, and nebulae fill the frame. The globular cluster NGC 6723 is prominent in the upper right, though it's much farther away than Corona Australis.

Image Credit: Dark Energy Survey/DOE/FNAL/DECam/CTIO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA. Image processing: R. Colombari & M. Zamani (NSF NOIRLab)

The Dark Energy Camera's New Image is Reminiscent of van Gogh - Universe Today

NHSRCL achieves milestone as 350-Tonne TBM Cutterhead lowered at Vikhroli for MAHSR Bullet Train project - Rail Analysis India

The Mumbai-Ahmedabad High-Speed Rail (MAHSR) project has achieved another major engineering milestone with the lowering of the first Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) cutterhead at Vikhroli in Mumbai, Maharashtra. Executed by NHSRCL, the development marks an important stage in the construction of one of India’s most ambitious transportation infrastructure projects.

The cutterhead, measuring an impressive 13.6 meters in diameter and weighing approximately 350 tonnes, forms the front-end excavation component of the TBM. Its successful lowering represents the final phase of assembling the machine’s primary shield structure before tunneling activities begin.

 This sparkling, colorful gemstone is a spiral galaxy, NGC 300. It is one of the closest spiral galaxies to Earth, only about 6 million light-years away. This unusual image combines the light from the stars and dust within the galaxy with the light from ionized clouds of interstellar gas shown in red (Sulphur), green (Hydrogen) and blue (Oxygen).

Combining red and green light in different proportions makes yellow or orange light, most visible in the image. Light from other ionized gases is also at work in neon signs, fluorescent tubes and street lights.

These massive clouds of ionized gas are typically created by young, massive stars that produce high-energy ultraviolet radiation capable of ionizing the gas. Massive stars are short-lived, compared with lighter stars like our sun, and explode as supernovas at the end of their lives. Some of the colorful clouds in the image could be hiding supernova remnants.

APOD: 2026 July 16 - NGC 300: A Cosmic Gemstone with Stars and Gas Clouds

One can interestingly find dragons fighting in the night sky In the southern constellation of the Altar: Ara, made of suggestively shaped gas and dust.

The celestial home of the mythological battling beasts is cataloged as NGC 6188 and located about 4,000 light years away near the edge of a large molecular cloud. Massive, young stars of the embedded Ara OB1 association were formed there only a few million years ago, sculpting the dark shapes and powering the nebular glow with stellar winds and intense ultraviolet radiation. Joining NGC 6188 on this cosmic canvas, visible toward the lower right, is unusual emission nebula NGC 6164, also created by one of the region's massive stars. This impressively wide field picture, captured from Queensland, Australia, spans over 2 degrees (four full Moons).

Image Credit & Copyright: Rod Prazeres

The United Arab Emirates has achieved a significant milestone in advanced air mobility with the certification of VDX, the world's first purpose-built commercial "VERTIPORT".

The General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) granted regulatory certification to the facility, developed by Skyports Infrastructure in collaboration with Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority (RTA). Located adjacent to Dubai International Airport, VDX will serve as the primary hub for Dubai’s planned Air Taxi network.

The certification process included a detailed assessment of the vertiport’s infrastructure, physical characteristics, operational procedures, safety management, emergency preparedness, and regulatory compliance. VDX features two dedicated take-off and landing areas, rapid charging infrastructure for electric aircraft, and passenger facilities across four storeys, spanning approximately 3,100 square metres. It is designed to handle up to 170,000 passengers annually once commercial operations begin.

https://evtolinsights.com/uae-certifies-worlds-first-purpose-built-commercial-vertiport/

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https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/markets/south-korea-s-kospi-crashes-8-triggering-a-market-wide-trading-halt-13972297.html

This image shows satellites crossing the night sky above the northern Atacama Desert in Chile, over a period of just one hour. It is a stack of a time-lapse video taken on 15 October 2025 about two hours after sunset. A few streaks are caused by planes, and can be easily identified by their blinking-coloured lights, but most trails are due to satellites.

In the foreground we see the dome of ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), the world’s largest optical/infrared telescope, currently under construction atop Cerro Armazones. Behind it we see the lasers of ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) at Paranal Observatory, 22 km away from the ELT.

Credit:

F. Kamphues, ESO/M. Kornmesser

Credit : ESO, NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, ESO; Image Processing: A. Pagan (STScI)

https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2026/07/Centaurus_A_ground-based_context

A three-panel comparison shows different views of galaxy Centaurus A. The upper left panel is a visible-light image of the full galaxy surrounded by a black sky filled with white, blue, and yellow stars. Centaurus A has a dark dust lane crossing a bright centre. A white outlined box marks the region observed by Webb. The upper right panel zooms into that outlined region with a combined near- and mid-infrared view from Webb. The galaxy is oriented diagonally, with a bright white core surrounded by an orange glow. A broad band of golden-orange dust forms a parallelogram across the centre, countless tiny stars create a fine speckled texture throughout the image. A dashed outline indicates the smaller region shown below, Webb’s mid-infrared view. The galaxy stretches horizontally across a black background scattered with purple and white stars, the parallelogram glows white. Wispy clouds and looping pink structures surround the centre. The galaxy’s edges fade into soft, feathery plumes.

This 1.7-gigapixel image of a field of stars in the constellation Lupus showcases the unprecedented view of the Universe that NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory gives us. Equipped with the LSST Camera — the largest digital camera in the world — Rubin combines a wide view of the sky with the ability to detect extremely faint objects. With this capability, Rubin can reveal details of the cosmos across an enormous range of scales, from distant galaxies, to individual stars, to the wispy clouds of dust spread throughout our galaxy.

The faint, glowing clouds spread across this image are galactic cirrus: clouds of interstellar gas and dust that can be seen in the foreground of the Milky Way. Rubin’s ability to capture scenes like this in unmatched detail will open new windows into the structure of our galaxy and the Universe beyond it.

Credit: NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory/NOIRLab/SLAC/AURA

If anyone is interested in the actual size image, please refer to link below:

https://rubinobservatory.org/gallery/collections/news-images/noirlab2616a

NGC 2440 is another planetary nebula ejected by a dying star, but it has a much more chaotic structure than NGC 2346. The central star of NGC 2440 is one of the hottest known, with a surface temperature near 200,000 degrees Celsius.

The complex structure of the surrounding nebula suggests to some astronomers that there have been periodic oppositely directed outflows from the central star, somewhat similar to that in NGC2346, but in the case of NGC 2440 these outflows have been episodic, and in different directions during each episode.

In addition to the bright nebula, which glows becauseof fluorescence due to ultraviolet radiation from the hot star, NGC 2440 is surrounded by a much larger cloud of cooler gas which is invisible in ordinary light but can be detected with infrared telescopes. NGC 2440 lies about 4,000 light-years from Earth in thedirection of the constellation Puppis.

A detailed infrared view of the Galactic Center region of our Milky Way Galaxy. These infrared images are sensitive to the presently forming massive stars there as well as the emission from cool regions of dust and gas orbiting our Galactic Center’s supermassive black hole (marked by the red star symbol). Our Sun lies 26,000 light years from our Galactic Center, but Sgr B1, B2 and C are orbiting the Galactic Center at only about 300 light years. Credit: These images are made from data from the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), the Spitzer Space Telescope, and the Herschel Space Observatory. (Credit: J. De Buizer (SETI) / SOFIA / Spitzer / Herschel)

The ESA has released a new image of the Milky Way's central bulge from the Euclid Space Telescope. It's the largest optical light, high-resolution image of the bulge ever taken. There are more than 60 million individual stars in this image, which will be used to help find exoplanets. Image Credit: ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA, CFHT, image processing by J.-C. Cuillandre and E. Bertin (CEA Paris-Saclay) Licence: CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO or ESA Standard Licence.

Courtesy: https://www.universetoday.com/articles/euclids-new-portrait-of-the-milky-ways-crowded-bulge

Image Credit & Copyright: Josep Drudis, Christian Sasse

Popularly called Thor's Helmet, NGC 2359 is a hat-shaped cosmic cloud with wing-like appendages. Heroically sized even for a Norse god, Thor's Helmet is about 30 light-years across. In fact, the cosmic head-covering is more like an interstellar bubble, blown by a fast wind from the bright, massive star near the bubble's center. Known as a Wolf-Rayet star, the central star is an extremely hot giant thought to be in a brief, pre-supernova stage of evolution.

NGC 2359 is located about 15,000 light-years away toward the constellation of the Great Overdog. This sharp image is a combination of deep images taken in light emitted by hydrogen (red) and oxygen (blue). The star in the center of Thor's Helmet is expected to explode in a spectacular supernova sometime within the next few thousand years.

The CMA CGM Group has taken delivery of the CMA CGM NOTRE DAME, a new-generation liquefied natural gas (LNG)-powered vessel and the largest containership currently operating under the French flag. The vessel has begun its maiden commercial voyage in Shanghai, China, before arriving in France and Europe in early July.

With 400 meters long, 62 meters wide, and 75 meters high, the CMA CGM NOTRE DAME is designed to carry up to 24,212 containers (TEU).

Deployed on the French Asia Line (FAL), the vessel operates on a rotation of approximately 102 days, calling at ports including Ningbo, Shanghai, Yantian, Singapore, Le Havre, Rotterdam, Hamburg and Tangier Med.

Beyond its LNG propulsion system, the vessel incorporates equipment designed to reduce its environmental footprint throughout operations, including an aerodynamic windshield system that lowers energy consumption and an 18,600 m³ LNG tank ensuring autonomy on Asia-Europe routes. It also features smart energy-management solutions, particularly for powering and ventilating refrigerated containers, with a capacity of 1,600 reefer plugs.

The CMA CGM NOTRE DAME is operated by a crew of around 30 highly specialized seafarers under the command of Captain Nicolas Le Scornet. An inauguration ceremony for the CMA CGM NOTRE DAME will take place in Le Havre on July 2, upon the vessel’s arrival in France.

About twelve thousand years ago, a relatively normal star in the constellation Vela suddenly exploded, creating a strange point of light briefly visible to humans living near the beginning of recorded history. The outer layers of the star crashed into the interstellar medium, driving a shock wave that is still visible today. The featured image, taken piecemeal over 60 hours from the Khomas Region of Namibia, captures some of that filamentary and gigantic shock in visible light, with details highlighted by hydrogen (red) and oxygen (blue) emissions. As gas flies away from the detonated star, it decays and reacts with the interstellar medium, producing light in many different colors and energy bands. Remaining at the center of the Vela Supernova Remnant is a pulsar, a star as dense as nuclear matter that spins around more than ten times in a single second.

Image Credit & Copyright: José Mtanous