Depois de permitir que os nomes de usuário sejam compartilhados e conversas sejam iniciadas a partir deles, o WhatsApp agora disponibilizou um campo para que seus usuários criem novos contatos salvando apenas o username, dispensando a necessidade de atrelar qualquer pessoa a um número de telefone.

A alternativa permite, por exemplo, checar os status de um determinado contato, ou habilitar que ele veja determinadas informações do seu perfil (como o seu ícone ou o campo de recado) caso a visibilidade esteja restrita à sua lista de contatos — coisas que só eram possíveis antes ao salvar seu número de telefone.

WhatsApp launches a username field for new contacts, compatible with Status Sharing!

On Android and iOS, WhatsApp has introduced a new field for the contact creation screen that lets users save a contact's username alongside their name.https://t.co/5hSI6SUrs0 pic.twitter.com/InGkJzgI7W

— WABetaInfo (@WABetaInfo) August 10, 2026

O novo campo está disponível tanto no iOS quanto no Android na tela já conhecida do público para adicionar novos contatos (ela pode ser acessada tocando no botão “+”, na seção “Conversas”, e depois selecionando a opção “Novo contato”).

Embora ainda não haja uma previsão oficial quanto à disponibilidade geral da novidade, o campo já foi notado por algumas pessoas que instalaram a versão mais recente do WhatsApp na App Store e pelos usuários da versão beta (via TestFlight).

Saudações de boas-vindas em grupos chegando ao iOS

Já presente na versão beta para Android, o mensageiro da Meta está testando no iOS um recurso que permite aos administradores de um grupo enviar uma mensagem automatizada de saudação para cada novo membro que integra a conversa coletiva.

O WhatsApp identifica a mensagem com um balão que inclui o texto “saudação automática”, e ela não poderá ser vista pelo restante do grupo (embora o usuário possa interagir com o recado).

WhatsApp is testing greeting messages for group chats on iOS!

WhatsApp is working on a feature that shares a welcome message in group chats.https://t.co/hr6GZoGaMm pic.twitter.com/7BXtCOYXoI

— WABetaInfo (@WABetaInfo) August 11, 2026

Mesmo que um grupo tenha vários administradores, haverá apenas uma mensagem de boas-vindas para todo o grupo. Todos os administradores compartilharão o mesmo texto e qualquer um deles poderá editá-lo.

Ainda em desenvolvimento, a ferramenta não foi sequer disponibilizada para testadores do app, embora tenha sido notada na versão 26.31.10.73 beta.

via WABetaInfo [1, 2]

Rocket launches this week On Monday, Aug. 10, a Long March 7A rocket carrying an undisclosed payload broke apart roughly one minute and 27 seconds after lifting off from Wenchang Space Launch Site at 8:02 a.m. EST. Footage from online livestreams captured the failure in real time; Chinese state media had not released any informationContinue reading "A Long March 7A failure opens a week of Starlink launches"

The post A Long March 7A failure opens a week of Starlink launches appeared first on Astronomy Magazine.

On Aug. 10, 1990, the Magellan orbiter arrived at Venus and was inserted into orbit. Its goal was to map the surface of the planet, using radar to peer beneath the cloudy atmosphere. Launched aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis in May 1989, Magellan was the first deep space probe launched from a shuttle. Budget constraintsContinue reading "Aug. 10, 1990: Magellan enters venusian orbit"

The post Aug. 10, 1990: Magellan enters venusian orbit appeared first on Astronomy Magazine.

The Soviet Luna program, designed for lunar research and mission planning, ran from 1959 to 1976. On Aug. 9, 1976, Luna 24, the final mission of the program, launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in present-day Kazakhstan. The probe landed on the Moon’s surface nine days later, in the Mare Crisium (Sea of Crises), a previouslyContinue reading "Aug. 9, 1976: Luna 24 blasts off"

The post Aug. 9, 1976: Luna 24 blasts off appeared first on Astronomy Magazine.

Amateur and professional astronomers pointed their telescopes at the impact site. Most did not detect anything.

NASA launched its Mars rover Curiosity inside the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) on Nov. 26, 2011. Complete with 10 science instruments and 17 cameras, the robot can analyze mineral types, search for signs of microbial life, and take color panoramas of the Red Planet’s surface. Curiosity’s landing on Mars was a new process, nicknamed theContinue reading "Aug. 6, 2012: Curiosity lands on Mars"

The post Aug. 6, 2012: Curiosity lands on Mars appeared first on Astronomy Magazine.

The second stage of a Falcon 9 rocket, which sent two private landers to the moon last year, will collide with the moon early Wednesday morning.

Elon Musk’s rocket company said its capital expenditures jumped nearly seven times from a year ago. Revenue also rose.

Se você gosta de acompanhar o mundo da aviação, então vale a pena conferir o app Overflight, o qual oferece uma visualização no estilo radar de todo o céu visível, com o diferencial de exibir com destaque a aeronave que está passando acima de você. É possível deslizar a tela para focar em qualquer outra aeronave e, quando o céu está tranquilo, o app permanece em estado de espera até a próxima ocorrência.

O aplicativo, é claro, também exibe detalhes como informações sobre a companhia aérea, o número do voo e o tipo de aeronave, bem como altitude, velocidade vertical, velocidade em relação ao solo, trajetória, rumo e distância.

Ele ainda pode mostrar, com destaque, o tráfego militar e de interesse especial assim que eles entram no céu. Vale notar, porém, que nem todas as aeronaves transmitem sua posição (alguns voos militares operam sem transmissão).

Na versão Pro, é possível conferir rotas em tempo real (da origem ao destino), ouvir anúncios de tráfego por voz, receber alertas de aproximação de aeronaves e ativar um modo “sempre ligado” para exibição ambiente contínua — ideal para a Apple TV, cuja versão foi recém-lançada.

O Overflight utiliza dados ADS-B gratuitos fornecidos por usuários e não requer a criação de conta ou cadastro. Além disso, sua localização é usada apenas para identificar as aeronaves acima de você.

O app está disponível gratuitamente na App Store para iPhone, iPad e Apple TV. A versão Pro, por sua vez, custa R$25/mês, R$130/ano ou a partir de uma licença vitalícia por R$500.

via 9to5Mac

With the Space Race heating up, the Ranger program was developed as an answer to Sputnik: The U.S. would land spacecraft on the Moon. When President John F. Kennedy vowed in 1961 to put a man on the lunar surface, the project evolved. Instead of being purely scientific or exploratory, Ranger spacecraft would also beContinue reading "July 31, 1964: Ranger 7 returns the first close pictures of the Moon"

The post July 31, 1964: Ranger 7 returns the first close pictures of the Moon appeared first on Astronomy Magazine.

Flaming chunks of metal crash into homes, farms and parking lots. Who’s to blame? And who pays for the damage?

Impulse Space has unveiled its first electric propulsion system, designed to work in tandem with chemical rocket engines to extend the capabilities of spacecraft during long space missions.

On Tuesday, the California-based company revealed Electra, which complements traditional rocket propulsion, rather than replacing it, providing a new layer of efficiency for spaceflight aided by electric thrusters.

“As launch becomes more accessible, the next frontier is enabling spacecraft to do more once they arrive in orbit,” said Tom Mueller, founder, CEO, and chief technology officer of Impulse, in a statement.

The Future is Electric

While electric propulsion systems produce lower levels of thrust compared to chemical rockets, they also consume far less propellant during spaceflight. Because of this, they are an ideal candidate for certain tasks, such as station keeping—the process where a spacecraft’s assigned orbit is maintained over long periods of months, or even years.

Presently, as much as 50% of a conventional spacecraft’s chemical propellant can be required solely for maintaining its orbit for the duration of a mission. Assigning those duties to an electric propulsion system allows chemical fuel to be reallocated toward higher-value mission operations, which include rapid orbital transfers and time-sensitive maneuvers.

Rapid Pace for Development

Electra was developed entirely in-house and in under a year, the company said in a statement this week. Engineers required less than half that time to advance from initial design stages to completion of a functioning propulsion system.

Almost all major components, which include Electra’s thruster and supporting avionics systems, were designed, manufactured, and tested in-house.

“The best part of building Electra has been the opportunity to move fast and try new things,” said Charlie Kelly, Lead Electric Propulsion Engineer at Impulse.

“We get to turn ideas into plasma in a matter of weeks or months, not years,” Kelly added.

Advancing Future Space Propulsion

Presently, the company is rapidly developing its next-generation designs, and qualification is currently underway for Electra’s integration with Mira, Impulse’s orbital transfer vehicle.

An initial in-space demonstration is expected to take place aboard Impulse’s GEO Express 1 mission next year, as part of the Caravan 1 mission.

The Next Generation of Spacecraft

In the past, The Debrief has reported on next-generation electric propulsion concepts, which include similar technologiesthat bring together modern chemical and electrical thruster systems currently used to propel spacecraft into a singular, hybrid system.

For Impulse, the new propulsion system represents another step toward building what it characterizes as a complete in-space mobility architecture—extending beyond launch itself to support satellite servicing, orbital transfers, cargo transportation, and future operations throughout cislunar space and beyond.

With an ever-increasing level of commercial activity in Earth orbit, such technologies will help to propel spacecraft for much longer periods, enabling long-duration space missions that reduce overall costs and fuel requirements.

“Our strategy has always been to develop the mobility technologies needed to support all missions after launch,” Mueller said this week, adding that “electric propulsion is an essential component of that strategy.”

Additional details about the company’s novel propulsion designs can be found at Impulse Space’s website.

Micah Hanks is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of The Debrief. A longtime reporter on science, defense, and technology with a focus on space and astronomy, he can be reached at micah@thedebrief.org. Follow him on X @MicahHanks, and at micahhanks.com.

It was the 13th test overall of Starship. The success is a boon to NASA’s moon plans and SpaceX’s hopes to deploy a million data centers in orbit.

NASA added a new X-59 test pilot to support the agency’s Quesst mission: Mike Lippert, a research test pilot based at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California.  

“This fulfills a lifelong dream of conducting airborne research and experimental flight test for NASA in the high desert — contributing to humankind’s understanding of the science of flight and the nature of the world around us,” Lippert said. 

Lippert will fly the X-59, along with the F-15 and F-18 support aircraft to monitor the quiet supersonic X-plane when it’s in the air. He joins Nils Larson and Jim “Clue” Less, who have been flying the X-59 since its first flight in October 2025.  

A South Carolina native, Lippert served 20 years with the U.S. Marine Corps before retiring last year as a lieutenant colonel. Like his fellow test pilots, he boasts an impressive flight resume, including logging more than 2,600 hours of flight time in 60 different types of aircraft.  

Lippert said he finds test pilot work especially rewarding. 

“For me, the joy of taking part in experimental flight test and airborne research is the experience of discovery and learning something new every day,” he said. “It is incredibly rewarding to be part of a team solving complex problems and venturing into the unknown, together.” 

Lippert spent the majority of his career flying the AV-8B Harrier operationally and serving as a test pilot in the F-35 program. He is also an aerospace engineer, earning a bachelor’s degree from the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, and a Master of Science in flight test engineering from the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base in California. Additionally, he earned a Master of Science in systems engineering from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California.  

Lippert is currently pursuing a doctoral degree in aerospace engineering at the University of Alabama Graduate School in Tuscaloosa, where his research focuses on high-speed gas dynamics, including supersonic and hypersonic fluid mechanics — complementing his work on the Quesst mission. 

Lippert is busy preparing for his role at NASA by flying training flights on support aircraft and spending time in the X-59 simulator. He is expected to begin flying the X-59 later this summer. 

More X-59 to Explore

Read more on the Quesst mission page.

The post Meet NASA’s New X-59 Test Pilot  appeared first on NASA Science.

Having launched on July 16, 1969, and landed on the Moon on July 20, the Apollo 11 astronauts returned home and splashed down in the Pacific on July 24, 1969. In a historically momentous trip, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin had become the first people to step onto the Moon. (The third member of theirContinue reading "July 24, 1969: Apollo 11 returns home"

The post July 24, 1969: Apollo 11 returns home appeared first on Astronomy Magazine.

Após um período em desenvolvimento, o WhatsApp começou a liberar um novo design para as bolhas de mensagens para testadores e alguns usuários da versão estável do seu aplicativo para iOS.

Como mostra a comparação abaixo, divulgada pelo WABetaInfo, as bolhas agora contam com cantos mais arredondados em relação à interface anterior — o que dá a elas uma aparência bem mais moderna.

Outra mudança pode ser vista especialmente nas mensagens de mídia trocadas em chats individuais, que deixaram de ter uma borda em volta de seu conteúdo e apresentam exclusivamente a foto ou o vídeo em questão.

Mensagens de mídia encaminhadas ou enviadas em grupo ainda mostram uma borda exclusivamente na parte superior — com o rótulo de encaminhamento ou a identificação de quem as enviou, respectivamente.

Links enviados com pré-visualização, por sua vez, apresentam a borda apenas na parte inferior, para abrigar o indicador de envio/recebimento/leitura.

Apesar de bem simples, essa será mais uma mudança que dará uma maior modernização à interface do app — especialmente nas bolhas das mensagens, que mantêm o mesmo estilo há muito tempo.

Earth’s orbit is getting crowded. About 16,000 satellites currently circle our planet, supporting everything from GPS navigation and weather forecasting to banking, emergency services and internet communications. Dozens more are launched every few weeks. Some estimates suggest the total number of satellites could exceed 100,000 within this decade, with more conservative estimates landing on up to 60,000 satellites byContinue reading "There are already 16,000 satellites in Earth’s orbit. How will we manage the next 100,000?"

The post There are already 16,000 satellites in Earth’s orbit. How will we manage the next 100,000? appeared first on Astronomy Magazine.