Starship Survives!

Welcome to another edition of our brand-new publication — the Weekly White Pill! Each week we’ll be covering the most interesting stories and developments across the worlds of science, space, and technology, bringing everything you might have missed throughout the past week directly to your inbox. We hope you enjoy it.

— spor & White Pill (check out more of their work here)

Space

Starship Survives! In a landmark test for SpaceX and its interplanetary transport system, Starship, the launch system successfully completed its fourth integrated test flight (IFT-4), achieving multiple firsts and overall marking a massive step forward for launch capabilities.

Launched from Boca Chica, Texas, on June 6, the test was a huge success. The Super Heavy booster and Starship lifted off from the pad well, and despite a minor hiccup with one of the Super Heavy's 33 Raptor engines failing to ignite, the mission began on a high note as Starship was inserted into its orbital trajectory. Shortly after a successful “hot staging”, the Super Heavy booster blasted back towards the Gulf of Mexico and carried out a controlled, soft, and ultimately incredible ocean landing—an important first for the launch system.

Once in its orbital trajectory, Starship coasted without problem for about 45 minutes before beginning reentry. Some of you may remember from IFT-3, the difficulty (and eventual demise) of Starship attempting to reenter the Earth’s atmosphere. But this time, even with the red-hot plasma burning a massive hole through one of Starship’s guiding flaps, Starship successfully navigated through the maximum heat phase and executed a soft ocean landing in the Indian Ocean!

In a massive step forward for SpaceX, IFT-4 demonstrated several technical advancements, including a new "hot staging" separation technique as well as the successful reentry of Starship and the soft landing of both booster and Starship. We were also again treated to a dramatic view of the plasma field surrounding the spacecraft as it reentered Earth’s atmosphere. All in all, the mission was deemed a success by SpaceX. The successful test not only advances SpaceX's reusability goals but also brings it one step closer to the ambitions of NASA's Artemis program, which hopes to have Starship putting humans back on the Moon by 2026.

The next flight test, IFT-5, may take place as soon as late July, and Elon Musk, spurred on by the success of IFT-4, suggested an even more ambitious goal for the next test—landing the booster back on the launch pad using the "Mechazilla" arms. What a sight that would be.

Boeing's Starliner spacecraft has finally lifted off and successfully docked with the International Space Station (ISS). It’s the first time astronauts have traveled to the ISS aboard Starliner. The mission, which faced some slight challenges en route, eventually saw NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams safely arrive at the station. After docking procedures solidified the Starliner's connection to the ISS, the hatch opened, and the astronauts joined the existing crew, bringing the total number of personnel on the ISS to nine.

This has been years in the making, however, including a failed uncrewed test flight in 2019. And even after the successful docking, five different helium leaks have been discovered aboard the Starliner craft. NASA’s been forced to postpone their return from June 14 to no earlier than June 18, as teams evaluate the potential impact of these leaks on the spacecraft's thruster systems, which are crucial for navigation.

China’s lunar leap. On June 2, China’s Chang'e 6 probe successfully landed on the far side of the moon, capturing and sending back a dramatic video of its descent and touchdown. The landing is a pioneering moment for the China National Space Administration (CNSA), which managed to provide a vivid close-up of the dark side’s rugged and cratered surface—a view invisible from Earth due to the moon's tidal locking. Not only does this display China's growing abilities in space exploration, but it could also shed a lot of light on one of the least understood regions of the moon.

Historically, missions to the moon's far side have been exceptionally rare, with China leading the efforts by achieving the first-ever soft landing there in 2019 with the Chang'e 4 mission. NASA's Ranger 4 was the first spacecraft to touch down on the far side of the moon in 1962, however, that was a crash landing. Chang'e 6 is another step forward for lunar exploration, offering new data and visuals that could enhance our understanding of the moon's composition and geological history.

More from Space:

• On Tuesday, Stoke Space successfully test-fired its first-stage rocket engine for the Nova rocket, aiming for a 2026 launch with a design that allows both rocket stages to be fully reusable. The test in Moses Lake, Washington, demonstrated the engine's full-flow, stage-combustion technology, which promises greater efficiency and is key to the rocket's reusability objectives. (Source)

• Planet, the satellite designer and Earth imaging company, has partnered with NVIDIA to space-qualify and use the NVIDIA Jetson AI platform aboard an EO satellite, which would allow for intelligent Earth observation and data processing in near real-time. Flying aboard Planet’s Pelican-2 satellite, it will “enable on-orbit compute” and significantly reduce the time from data capture to delivery, supporting immediate responses to events like forest fires and disasters. (Source)

• On May 30, Agnikul Cosmos, an Indian space startup, successfully launched the nation's first 3D-printed rocket engine, demonstrating key advancements in rapid assembly and cost reduction for rocket manufacturing. The successful test, which included the first use of a semi-cryogenic engine, “pav[es] the way for reduced time and costs associated with building rockets and boosting the country's spacefaring capabilities.” (Source)

• NASA has introduced a brand-new augmented reality (AR) experience on Instagram that allows users to interact with celestial phenomena from the Chandra X-ray Observatory, taking complex cosmic data and turning it into accessible 3D visualizations. Developed to celebrate Chandra's 25th anniversary, the new tool brings the wonders of the universe to your smartphone, a huge win for public engagement and education of space science. (Source)

• South Korea establishes the Korea Aerospace Administration (KASA) with a budget of 100 trillion won ($72 billion USD), aiming for a Mars landing by 2045 and expanding its space capabilities with lunar missions and domestic rocket development. (Source)

Science

Microsoft can now predict the weather? The tech giant recently unveiled a new, cutting-edge artificial intelligence model, Aurora, that can forecast both global weather and air pollution levels–all in under a minute. Developed in collaboration with its own AI researchers alongside professional meteorologists, Aurora is a pretty significant breakthrough. It provides forecasts for the entire globe rather than localized predictions.

Such impressive capabilities certainly offer a glimpse into the future of environmental monitoring, but also set a new standard in the integration of AI with the physical sciences, in this case atmospheric science. By efficiently predicting levels of major air pollutants like carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, and particulate matter, Aurora is also the first AI model to deliver a global pollution forecast.

Material science can be revolutionized. According to @TimothyDuignan on X, a significant milestone has been achieved using neural network potentials (NNPs) designed for molecular dynamics simulations. Utilizing advanced machine learning techniques, the research team was able to successfully simulate the nucleation and growth of NaCl (table salt) crystals, a process that emerged spontaneously during their experiments with a continuum solvent model—an approach that traditionally doesn’t predict such complex phenomena.

The simulations demonstrated not just the formation of crystal structures but also their correct lattice parameters, which are often hard to capture accurately through conventional modeling techniques. What does this imply? It not only challenges the existing understanding of how artificial intelligence can be applied in scientific research but it also means the NNP may be able to predict emergent phenomena beyond its initial training data – as Tim writes, “This is a phase transition, an emergent phenomena, totally out of distribution, supposedly where AI is no good.”

What causes earthquakes? Well, scientists at Brown University have found a new explanation that hones in on the alignment of fault networks, rather than friction, as significantly influencing earthquake occurrences. Led by geophysicist Victor Tsai, the team examined the structural geometry of rocks at fault zones and discovered that the arrangement of fault networks significantly influences both the occurrence and magnitude of earthquakes. Their research suggests that the complexities within rock formations, like bends and gaps, are the key, challenging more traditional theories about seismic activity.

Extensive mathematical modeling and analysis of fault zones in California, as well as the data from significant sources like the U.S. Geological Survey's Quaternary Fault Database, went into the research. They found that the more complex the underground structures are, the more likely they are to lock up and later release sudden bursts of energy, causing earthquakes. Whereas simpler, smoother fault structures tend to allow more gradual, non-seismic movements known as ‘creep.’

More from Science:

• Physicists have successfully created a Bose-Einstein condensate from stable molecules — a huge scientific breakthrough that could lead to new quantum computers and advances in our understanding of exotic phases of matter. (Source)

• Researchers from Mass Eye and Ear and Fudan University have successfully restored hearing in five children with inherited deafness by using a novel gene therapy targeting the OTOF gene, with “astounding” results. (Source)

• A Phase II trial of the drug Jemperli (dostarlimab-gxly) has cured 100% of patients with locally advanced rectal cancer, showing no evidence of tumors in all 42 participants. (Source)

• Researchers at the University of Cambridge have developed a low-cost, energy-efficient activated charcoal 'sponge' that can capture CO2 directly from the air using a battery-like charging process. (Source)

• Could a fungus help solve pollution? A collaboration of European scientists found that the marine fungus Parengyodontium album is able to degrade polyethylene plastic in the ocean, but only after exposure to UV radiation. They believe other plastic-degrading fungi might exist in deeper parts of the ocean, as well. (Source)

• Biomanufacturing is steadily improving. Researchers have developed a two-step CO2 electrolysis process that efficiently converts carbon dioxide into valuable chemicals like acetate and ethylene, scaling production up to a kilogram per day. (Source)

• Dr. Raffaele Teperino and his team at Helmholtz Munich have linked fathers' diets prior to conception to their children's health . Their study showed that “sperm exposed to a high-fat diet in the mouse epididymis led to offspring with an increased tendency to metabolic diseases.” (Source)

• In a striking discovery, Stanford Medicine researchers have identified that adaptive myelination, a brain process that enhances learning and memory, also intensifies opioid addiction by strengthening drug-seeking behaviors through the brain's reward pathways. (Source)

Tech

The MET Embedded: Twitter/X user and fellow Technology Brother, @itsandrewgao, may have just revolutionized the way we interact with art online. In a thread on X, Andrew introduced a state-of-the-art semantic search tool that embeds 250,000 artworks from The Metropolitan Museum of Art using Nomic AI's cutting-edge multimodal embeddings model, Nomic-Embed-Vision. The tool allows users to perform nuanced searches of MET artworks with queries like "oil painting with flowers & dogs," enabling a more intuitive and comprehensive exploration of art than traditional keyword-based searches.

Check out the live Nomic Atlas map here, as well as Andrew’s thread on X which contains a tutorial video for searching the Atlas semantically, here.

Bill Gates’ nuclear energy company, TerraPower, has begun construction on its Natrium reactor demonstration project in Kemmerer, Wyoming, marking the initial phase to bring online the first advanced nuclear reactor of its kind. Natrium promises to revolutionize nuclear energy with safer, more efficient, and cost-effective technology. How?

The novel design introduces a 345 MW sodium-cooled fast reactor coupled with a molten salt-based energy storage system, which can elevate its output to 500 MW to meet peak demand—enough to power approximately 400,000 homes. This advanced design allows for seamless integration with renewable energy sources, boasting a unique energy storage capability that currently stands alone in advanced reactor technologies. Construction will require about 1,600 workers and once complete, it’s expected “that 250 people will support day-to-day activities, including plant security.”

Ever wonder what an atom really looks like? Well, this is the very first X-ray ever taken of a single atom. The image was taken by scientists from Ohio University, Argonne National Laboratory, and the University of Illinois-Chicago, with their findings published in the journal Nature. The technology they used to do so, known as synchrotron X-ray scanning tunneling microscopy (SX-STM), allows for not only the imaging of individual atoms but also the identification of their chemical states.

The SX-STM technique combines traditional synchrotron radiation with quantum tunneling to detect the type and chemical state of atoms by exciting core electrons with X-rays and measuring the electrons that tunnel to a detector tip placed near the sample. Thereby, scientists can now obtain a detailed elemental fingerprint of the atoms within a material. This method was demonstrated at the XTIP beamline at Argonne's Advanced Photon Source using iron and terbium atoms. Going forward, the ability to discern the chemical interactions of these atoms with their environments should prove incredibly useful for scientists.

More from Tech:

• Stability.ai recently launched Stable Audio Open, their new open-source model for generating up to 47 seconds of audio samples from text prompts. Meant to empower sound designers and musicians, it specializes in audio samples and sound effects, like creating drum beats, ambient sounds, and more. (Source)

• This week, Cisco launched a $1 billion fund to invest in AI startups. With initial investments in companies like Cohere, Mistral AI, and Scale AI, the company is looking to further its focus on generative AI and machine learning. (Source)

• Have you ever wished you could understand what your dog is trying to say to you? Well, you’re in luck. University of Michigan researchers, in collaboration with Mexico's INAOE, have developed an AI model that can interpret a dog's bark, determining emotions like playfulness or aggression, by adapting human speech models to animal vocalizations. (Source)

• Last year, a team at the University of Illinois developed a nanoscale robotic ‘hand’ using ‘DNA origami’ – a method in which “a long, single strand of DNA is ‘stapled’ together by shorter DNA pieces that pair with specific sequences on the longer strand.” The ‘hand’ is capable of grasping small objects like gold nanoparticles and viruses, potentially preventing the latter from infecting cells, and demonstrates how DNA can be structured into complex shapes and utilized in microscopic operations. (Source)

• LumaLabs, an AI lab building multimodal generative AI models, recently released their very own text-to-video generative model that can create high quality, realistic shots from text instructions, as well as inputted images. It’s available to everyone now for free – but be warned, the backlog is heavy as people have swarmed to the platform to put the model to the test. (Source)

There’s undoubtedly so many more incredible white pills we could’ve brought your attention to — the world of space, science, and technology is just too vast and too fascinating to touch on them all. But we hoped you enjoyed this edition of the Weekly White Pill! And we look forward to seeing you again next week with another batch of the latest innovations, discoveries, and so so much more.

Thanks!