Marcada para estrear em 12 de agosto (uma quarta-feira), a nova parte da produção acompanhará María (Bárbara Mori), agora promovida a tenente, enquanto se vê dividida entre as regras que jurou cumprir e uma busca implacável pela verdade, após a descoberta do corpo de uma estudante ativista.
#WomenInBlue — Apresentando-se para o serviço em 12 de agosto.
Veja o trailer também no YouTube:
Enquanto María, Valentina (Natalia Téllez), Gabina (Amorita Rasgado) e Ángeles (Ximena Sariñana) travam batalhas dentro e fora da delegacia, verdades ocultas vêm à tona e elas são forçadas a confrontar uma questão incômoda: em um sistema assolado pela corrupção, qual é o preço de lutar pelos seus ideais?
Depois da estreia, novos episódios de “Mulheres de Azul” serão lançados semanalmente, sempre às quartas-feiras, até 30 de setembro.
O Apple TV está disponível no aplicativo Apple TV em mais de 100 países e regiões, seja em iPhones, iPads, Apple TVs, Macs, dispositivos Android, smart TVs ou online — além de também estar em aparelhos como Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Chromecast com Google TV, consoles PlayStation e Xbox. O serviço custa R$29,90 por mês, com um período de teste gratuito de 7 dias. Por tempo limitado, quem comprar e ativar um novo iPhone, iPad, Apple TV ou Mac ganha 3 meses do Apple TV. Ele também faz parte do pacote de assinaturas da empresa, o Apple One.
NOTA DE TRANSPARÊNCIA: O MacMagazine recebe uma pequena comissão sobre vendas concluídas por meio de links deste post, mas você, como consumidor, não paga nada mais pelos produtos/serviços usando os nossos links de afiliado.
Nowadays, the word "weapon" may evoke modern-day technologies such as firearms, blades and missiles. Yet archaeological evidence shows that weapons have existed for hundreds of thousands of years. Of course, early humans wielded weapons that looked quite different from those used today.
So what is the oldest weapon?
Generally, weapons are defined as objects used to impart violence on other living beings, said Ben Fitzhugh, a professor of anthropology at the University of Washington in Seattle. That includes objects used in interpersonal conflict among hominins (a group that includes modern Homo sapiensand our relatives that evolved following the split from chimps and bonobos) and for hunting, Fitzhugh toldLive Science.
But archaeologists don't automatically consider just any object that could cause harm to be a weapon; context and intent matter, Rolf Warming, founding director of the Society for Combat Archaeology and a doctoral candidate in archaeology at Stockholm University, told Live Science in an email. For instance, experts excavating a site with potential weapons might look for evidence of hunting, such as butchered animal bones; or artifacts like pointed bone tools that can be used to craft weapons. They may also consider what objects were made out of and residue or wear marks on the weapons themselves, which can help determine how they were used.
According to Warming, archaeologists generally consider three finds as contenders for the oldest evidence of weaponry in the archaeological record: the Clacton spear, the Schöningen spears and throwing sticks, and the Kathu Pan 1 spear points.
Clacton spear
Scientists have estimated that the Clacton spear is over 400,000 years old. Experts think the uncovered 15-inch-long (37 centimeters) spear point was broken off from a longer shaft, perhaps by accident while the user was hunting, or deliberately as a ritual. It's made from yew wood and was worked with a tool to a sharp point on one end. The broken end was never found.
Excavated in 1911 from Clacton-on-Sea in Essex, England, the Clacton spear is now on display in London's Natural History Museum, where it is labeled as the oldest preserved wooden spear fragment in the world.
Archaeologists believe it was fashioned by either Homo heidelbergensis or Neanderthals— two hominins that predate H. sapiens. In fact, the spear appears to be older than our species, as the oldest known H. sapiens fossilsdate to around 300,000 years ago.The Clacton spear's shape, size and wood suggest that it was a thrusting weapon and that its makers engaged in cooperative hunting strategies.
Schöningen spears and throwing sticks
Different views of a throwing stick from Schöningen, a contender for one of the world's oldest weapons. (Image credit: Photograph by Volker Minkus)
They're considered the oldest completely preserved wooden weapons in the world, according to the Schöningen Research Museum; today, archaeologists' varying estimates place the weapons' age between 200,000 and 300,000 years old. Their creation has historically been attributed to H. heidelbergensis, an early human species that lived about 700,000 to 200,000 years ago throughout Europe, parts of Africa, and possibly in what is now China. More recent dating suggests the spears could potentially be the work ofNeanderthals, according to a 2025 study.
Scientists think these spears, which average just over 6.6 feet (2 meters) long, were used as thrusting weapons, throwing weapons or some combination of both to hunt larger game mammals, like horses, according to a 2024 study. The shorter throwing sticks are believed to be projectile weapons and average around 26 inches (65 centimeters) long.
"In fact, the [Schöningen weapons] were found in association with butchered horses," Fitzhugh noted. The spears were sharpened, hardened and blackened using fire. "These things were shaped in a dynamically sophisticated way," he said.
According to Warming, the Schöningen weapons suggest hominins had clear material knowledge and used different hunting tactics depending how far they were from their target.
Kathu Pan 1 spear points
Hafted spear tips — stone points attached to some form of handle or shaft — became more common in the archaeological record between 200,000 and 300,000 years ago across Africa and Eurasia, and were previously thought to be created by Neanderthals or H. sapiens.
However, 500,000-year-old stone points excavated from the Kathu Pan archaeological site in South Africa have signs of wear on the edges, and the shape of their base is consistent with hafted spears, suggesting they were used as weapons. Their age predates both Neanderthals and H. sapiens, and the location they were found in suggests they could have been created by H. heidelbergensis, who lived in regions of southern Africa at that time. Archeologists think they could have been used as spear ambush weapons.
But some researchers have contested this evidence, arguing that it's "indirect" or even controversial, as no wooden shafts were uncovered with the spear points to solidify them as weapons as opposed to stone tools.
These are some of the earliest examples of weapons in the archaeological record, but there may be older weapons that have not survived throughout time.
While hominins likely used organic materials like wood, sinew, fiber and adhesives to create objects and weapons, these materials break down or are destroyed over time, Warming noted.
Studying these ancient weapons gives us perspective about the present. After all, weapons are more than tools of harm: Warming said they are material clues that give us glimpses into how our early relatives combined materials, used their imaginations, shared knowledge and cooperated in groups.
Yet among these three important finds, Warming said that when inquiring about the oldest known weapon in the world, that "Clacton is the safest answer."
Female farm managers are hidden in plain sight in ancient Roman texts, mentioned in laws, literature and grave inscriptions across five centuries. Modern historians have generally assumed they were housekeepers, in charge of domestic tasks and household meals, and segregated from the productive business of the farm.
My new paper, published in the Journal of Roman Archaeology, challenges this assumption.
In fact, there is evidence to suggest that many Roman female farm managers supervised wine production and other processes vital to farming and profits.
A false lead
A farming manual written by the Roman writer Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella in the 1st century CE is a window to the roles of the female manager.
An upper class landowner himself, Columella lists the responsibilities of farm managers, who were probably enslaved. The male manager was termed the vilicus, and the female manager the vilica, terms derived from their roles at the "villa".
But many historians reading this text have been side-tracked by a false lead: Columella begins his section on the vilica with a long quote from the Greek philosopher Xenophon, who wrote in Athens more than four centuries earlier.
A quote from Greek philosophy led many to misunderstand the roles women played in ancient Roman farming. (Image credit: Mahmoud Amer/Pexels)
The "natural" role of women, according to Xenophon, was to work indoors. Therefore in his discussion, the ideal upper-class married woman is depicted staying inside her town house to supervise the domestic work of the slaves.
The Greek writer is not discussing farm workers. In fact, Columella says four times that these ideas are not his own, but those of Xenophon, writing long ago.
Columella lists a completely different set of responsibilities for the vilica on a Roman farm: most importantly, the making of wine and olive oil, which were highly valuable commodities — the backbone of landowners' profits.
In his description of the vilica's duties, Columella includes the extraction of the juice from grapes during the harvest; adding flavorings and preservatives such as salt, wormwood, fennel or boiled grape-juice; and overseeing successful fermentation into wine.
According to Columella, the vilica also managed the processing of other farm products to make them long-lasting and profitable, such as turning inedible olives into olive oil for sale.
From archaeology we know that production of wine or oil, using huge machines in substantial buildings, could reach 50,000 to 100,000 litres per year, or even more. The vilica was therefore responsible for overseeing large-scale work essential to the operation of the estate.
Calling on the gods
Correct sacrifices to the gods were seen as vital to the success of the farm. Archaeology has uncovered altars for offerings in Roman wine-making buildings.
Wine-making in the Roman world was a precarious process, due to uncontrolled temperatures, bacteria or oxygenation. Wine could easily go moldy or turn into vinegar.
A striking element of Columella's account is that he includes carrying out offerings to avert such a disaster in his instructions for the female farm manager.
Looking for more clues
Other texts contain barely more than a mention of the vilica, revealing only her presence.
But we can still put together some clues.
Legal writings on inheritance, quoting the 1st century BCE jurist Trebatius, include her in the instrumentum fundi — whatever (including enslaved personnel) is required for productive work, gathering and preserving produce of the estate.
A mosaic shows Roman farm women at the Villa Romana del Casale, Sicily. (Image credit: Joe Lynch)
Another aristocratic landowner and writer, Cato the Elder, living two centuries before Columella, lists both the female and the male farm manager as essential staff for a vineyard or olive farm.
He devotes only one small section to outlining the female farm manager's tasks, but a close look shows these are not predominantly domestic. Cato includes keeping poultry and processing of seasonal farm products. Although he does include supervision of cleaning, this could refer to maintenance of work spaces such as stables and wine making buildings, an integral part of estate management – and also listed by Columella among the vilica's duties.
Cato also gives the vilica the responsibility for making sacrifices to the gods for the success of the farm. She must regularly offer garlands at the altar "for abundance", he writes.
A Roman mosaic showing estate work in different seasons depicts a scene of sacrifices for abundant crops to the god Jupiter (in his Celtic form as a sky and weather god). A woman is shown holding an offering of garlands, just as Cato instructs. Beside her are a jug for wine offerings and a male figure.
Perhaps this mosaic shows the vilica and vilicus, both essential to the success of annual harvests. While such images of female figures are rare, one fragmentary wall painting from Rome shows a female overseeing wine-making workers, just as Columella describes.
This combined body of evidence suggests we should expand outdated understandings of the roles that Roman women played in farm production, the dominant sector of ancient economies.
No vilica has left us an account of her work in her own words. But by paying careful attention to the evidence, we can hear an echo of her voice.
The ancient Egyptians believed that gold was the flesh of the gods, meaning that bestowing gold tongues upon the deceased could help them speak in the afterlife. But it's not entirely certain whether all of the newly found gold objects were tongues (one may actually depict a wheat ear, a symbol of fertility), and the mystery of a possible false door inside the tomb is also stirring up debate.
Astrochemists delivered a sweet surprise this week, with news that they had detected a type of sugar called erythrulose in interstellar space, near the center of our Milky Way galaxy.
Erythrulose, consisting of four carbon atoms, is found in raspberries back on Earth. But its presence in space is a mouthwatering sign that the essential ingredients for life are highly abundant across our galaxy. That could make life much more prevalent than we thought, and could mean that aliens may also have a sweet tooth.
Animals come in all shapes and sizes, but are any a satisfyingly perfect sphere? It turns out that this deceptively simple question holds some evolutionarily profound implications.
Geoguessing emerged in the last decade as a geography game (and later a popular esport) in which players deduce locations from Google Maps imagery. But what about geoguessing something completely undocumented, and one that only trained scientists should be able to recognize?
In that circumstance, amateur astronomer Joël Lapointe should be crowned this year's champion. Using Google Maps to plan a hiking trip in Quebec's Côte-Nord region, Lapointe stumbled upon an indentation that has now been confirmed by scientists to be a 390 million-year-old scar from a gigantic asteroid collision.
"I get lots of messages from the public thinking they have found a crater and 99/100 turn out not to be the case," Gordon Osinski, a professor of planetary geology at Western University in Canada who confirmed the find, told Live Science in an email. "This is one of those rare examples that shows this is possible."
If you're looking for things to keep you busy over the weekend, here's a selection from our best opinion pieces, interviews, diagnostic dilemmas and crosswords that we published this week.
Named Colobus congoensis after the remote region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo where it was found, this striking newfound species has orange lips and makes unique roars and snorts.
The monkey's discovery is remarkable, most of all because finding new primates is extremely rare — with only five new ones being identified in Africa over the past 75 years — and also because of its relatively large size. Pinning down the species took years of careful tracking and documentation, alongside work with people from eight local villages who had knowledge of it.
Besides being a cool find in its own right, the discovery points to there being potentially many more undiscovered mammals, fish, reptiles and plants hidden inside the Congolian rainforest.
This year's El Niño will almost certainly become the strongest ever recorded, an analysis by a prominent climate researcher has warned. Though other scientists have cautioned that it's still too early to say what it will unleash.
Dynamical models now assign a 90% chance of the 2026-2027 El Niño being an all-time record event, sending temperatures in the Pacific Ocean up to around 3.6 degrees Celsius (6.5 degrees Fahrenheit)above average, according to an analysis by Zeke Hausfather, a research scientist at Berkeley Earth and an author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Seventh Assessment Report.
As the warm phase of a multiyear natural climate pattern, the El Niño could bring unprecedented temperature extremes to an already-warming world. The natural climate pattern is infamous for boosting global temperatures and fueling disruptive weather events such as floods and droughts.
A strong El Niño doesn't guarantee more severe weather impacts. The current El Niño models are also imperfect predictions of what's to come, and we won't know the true nature of this El Niño event until it peaks, likely later this year. However, forecasters have been warning of potentially supercharged El Niño conditions for months, and as more data emerges, there are more reasons to prepare.
According to projections by the World Meteorological Organization, the current El Niño — officially declared on June 11— is on track to rapidly develop into a "strong" event between July and September. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Climate Prediction Center now predicts a more than 80% likelihood of very strong El Niño conditions taking hold by the end of the year, ranking this El Niño event among the largest in the historical record.
"These are striking forecasts," Emily Black, a professor of terrestrial processes and climate at the University of Reading and a senior scientist at the National Centre for Atmospheric Science in the U.K., told Live Science in an email. "El Niño forecasts always come with uncertainty, but the level of agreement between models at this time of year, combined with the observed warming already underway in the tropical Pacific, means this should be taken very seriously."
"The important point is that a very strong El Niño would substantially shift the odds of damaging weather in many parts of the world, particularly in the Global South — with severe impact on livelihoods," Black added.
The International Rescue Committee, a humanitarian organization, has warned that the intense El Niño conditions threaten to unleash severe flooding and drought across East Africa and Asia, hitting some of the most vulnerable communities, Al Jazeera reported Tuesday (July 14).
El Niño continues and will strengthen through the end of the year, with a 97% chance it will persist through early spring 2027. An #ElNino Advisory remains in effect. #ENSO https://t.co/5zlzaZ1aZx pic.twitter.com/ASC46wKOn4July 9, 2026
During El Niño, warmer waters gather east of the equatorial Pacific, forcing the jet stream south. In the U.S., this typically brings warmer, drier conditions to the Northeast, while the Gulf Coast and Southeast experience an increased risk of flooding. Globally, the net result of the warmer waters is more heat in the atmosphere, on top of the temperature rise from human-driven global warming.
"El Niño is a natural climate phenomenon, but it is now happening against the backdrop of a much warmer planet," Black said. "That matters because a strong El Niño releases heat and energy into an already warmed world."
"This does not mean every impact can be attributed simply to El Niño or simply to climate change," Black added. "The two interact. El Niño can load the dice towards drought in some regions, flooding in others, marine heatwaves, disrupted monsoons and unusually high global temperatures. Climate change makes many heat extremes more severe and can intensify heavy rainfall because a warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture."
The last El Niño event occurred between 2023 and 2024. Both years broke temperature records, with 2024 becoming the hottest on record and the first to breach the 1.5-degree- Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) warming limit set by the 2016 Paris Agreement. The current El Niño is forecast to be more intense than the one in 2023 and 2024, with the projected "very strong" status putting it in a different class of severity.
Residents wade through stagnant water over a flooded road at Kohoto estate in Naivasha, Kenya on November 17, 2025 (Image credit: Tony Karumba/AFP via Getty Images)
The strongest El Niño in history?
Hausfather's analysis reports that there's around a 90% chance that the current El Niño will be the strongest ever recorded, with data from multimodel forecasts suggesting that it may obliterate the previous record.
"With the July runs now in from 667 ensemble members across 14 different seasonal forecast models, it looks like this year's El Niño is not only very likely to be the strongest event since reliable records began — it may end up the strongest by a truly mind-blowing margin," Hausfather wrote in The Climate Brink Substack post published Monday (July 13).
NOAA recognizes El Niño conditions when the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean is at least 0.5 C (0.9 F) warmer than the historical average, while wind, surface pressure and rainfall in the region are also consistent with El Niño conditions. The El Niño is then categorized as weak, moderate, strong or very strong. A very strong El Niño (above 2 C, or 3.6 F, warmer than the historical average) is often nicknamed a "super" El Niño, though it's not a scientific term.
The July models suggest that temperatures will likely sail past 2 C above average in the coming months and could potentially even exceed 3.5 C (6.3 F) above average by the end of the year. This is based on newly introduced sea surface temperature forecasts that account for rising background temperatures that can inflate El Niño warming figures. In the traditional and most widely used indices, the temperature-anomaly forecasts cluster closer to 4 C (7.2 F), with some even exceeding 4 C.
This Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich satellite image captures the massive wave of warm water and higher-than-usual sea surfaces (red) that stretched across the Pacific on June 8, just a few days before El Niño was declared. (Image credit: Data for the map were acquired by the Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich satellite and processed by scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).NASA Earth Observatory/Lauren Dauphin)
In The Climate Brink Substack, Hausfather noted that the multimodel median for the event's peak is currently forecast at 3.6 C (6.5 F), or around 0.8 C (1.4 F) hotter than the prior record holder (2.75 C, set in the 2015-2016 El Niño event). Hausfather wrote that around 91% of ensemble members (individual computer models) have this El Niño exceeding the 2015-2016 record at their peak — around 77% likelihood in the newly introduced indices.
However, Black stressed that the models are still estimates, and not guarantees.
"It is certainly plausible that this could become a record-breaking El Niño, and the latest forecasts make that a real possibility rather than a remote one," Black said. "However, I would still be cautious about treating any probability estimate as a certainty."
"There are two reasons for caution," she added. "First, this event has not peaked yet, and El Niño events usually reach their maximum strength later in the year. Second, 'strongest ever recorded' depends on the index, dataset and baseline used."
"Impacts are what matter"
The most severe El Niño events have left a trail of devastation in their wake. For example, the 2015-2016 El Niño saw a record-breaking hurricane season in the central North Pacific, severe drought in the Caribbean and Ethiopia, and, of course, abnormally hot global temperatures, according to NOAA's Climate.gov. If the forecasts pan out, the current El Niño will match or exceed the 2015-2016 event, as well as an even more infamous super El Niño that occurred between 1877 and 1878, long before modern recordkeeping of El Niño began in 1950.
The 1877-1878 event likely fueled an extreme drought that fed into the 1876-1878 global famine, which ultimately killed more than 50 million people — making it among the worst humanitarian crises in history. However, the disaster was far from just an environmental one, with extractive colonial agricultural policies helping to create conditions for a massive humanitarian crisis. Nonetheless, the famine highlights what can happen when environmental and socioeconomic factors converge.
The El Niño-Southern Oscillation cycle triggers a warm El Niño and then a cold La Niña roughly every two to seven years, with each phase typically lasting around nine to 12 months. Carbon Brief has predicted that 2026 is likely to be the second-warmest year on record, with the intensifying El Niño increasing the likelihood that 2027 will be the warmest year ever recorded.
The strength of an El Niño event does not necessarily correspond to the size of its influence or impact, according to the Climate Prediction Center. More severe events typically, but not always, increase the certainty of expected impacts. Black believes the impact of an El Niño event is more important than where it ranks in the observational record.
"Records are compelling, but impacts are what matter," Black said. "Even if it falls just short of a record, a very strong El Niño can still have serious consequences. Finally, these forecasts are concerning, but they are also useful: they give societies time to anticipate possible impacts and act before the worst effects are felt."
Up to 90% of Earth's population may be able to see the enormous "God of Chaos" asteroid Apophis zoom past our planet in less than three years, scientists say. The skyscraper-size space rock will come closer to us than some satellites, making it clearly visible to the naked eye during the "once-in-a-millennium" skywatching event.
This will be the first time humans have ever been able to predict a flyby of an asteroid visible to the naked eye, and it could be a once-in-a-lifetime experience for the up to 7.6 billion people who manage to see it, scientists said at the Apophis T-3 Years workshop, held June 18-19 at the University of Padua in Italy.
"Sighting Apophis as it passes by is a way of feeling a shared cosmic experience, realizing the smallness of Earth in the vastness of space," Richard Binzel, a planetary scientist and asteroid expert at MIT who helped organize the recent workshop and create new maps of the flyby, told Live Science in an email.
The asteroid, dubbed 99942 Apophis (or simply Apophis), is a peanut-shaped object that spans about 1,500 feet (450 meters) across at its widest point, or around as wide as the Empire State Building is tall, making it large enough to wipe out a city if it ever impacted our planet. Apophis likely originated from the solar system's main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, but it now resides between the orbits of Venus and Earth, circling our home star roughly every 10.5 months. The name Apophis comes from Apep, the Egyptian serpent god of darkness and disorder, which has earned the space rock the nickname "God of Chaos."
On April 13, 2029, Apophis will make a superclose flyby of Earth, reaching a minimum distance of around 19,000 miles (30,600 kilometers) from our planet, according to The Planetary Society. That's much farther away than the International Space Station and the thousands of other spacecraft in low Earth orbit, but it's closer than several hundred satellites stationed in an elevated geosynchronous orbit. (Apophis poses no threat to these high-altitude satellites because they can easily be maneuvered away from its projected path.)
At the recent Apophis T-3 Years workshop, scientists shared new maps showing how many people will be within viewing range of the asteroid at each point of its seven-hour flyby of Earth. (Image credit: eclipseatlas.com)
Therefore, scientists are keen to monitor the flyby in great detail and will coordinate observations from telescopes around the world to understand the potentially hazardous asteroid better. Several spacecraft, including NASA's OSIRIS-APEX, will also attempt to fly past Apophis to study its structure and trajectory. The event is so significant that the United Nations has declared 2029 the International Year of Asteroid Awareness and Planetary Defence.
Researchers also hope the flyby will provide a unique opportunity to inspire the next generation of space scientists. "I hope people will find the Apophis flyby intriguing, as it is not anything fearful or frightening at all," Binzel said. "Who knows how many young people might find a spark of curiosity that leads them on a path to a career in space studies."
Who will see Apophis?
The new maps help break down who might be able to see Apophis throughout the roughly seven-hour period it passes by our planet. The asteroid will be visible only to people who are positioned within its path at twilight or night amid clear skies and limited light pollution.
Apophis will slowly move across the night sky through a set of well-known constellations, although its exact position will depend on where in the world you are. (Image credit: eclipseatlas.com)
At the start of the flyby, when Apophis is farthest from Earth, the asteroid could be visible to around 4.5 billion people across Australia and most of Asia. By the end of the flyby, when the space rock reaches its closest point to us, it might be visible to around 1.9 billion people in eastern South America, northern Africa and parts of Europe, according to the new maps.
Peak visibility will occur around halfway through the flyby, when Apophis might be seen by as many as 5.7 billion people across eastern Africa, Southern Europe, Australia, and all of Asia and the Middle East. At this point, astronomical observatories situated on Spain's Canary Islands will likely snap the best photos of the asteroid's flyby, according to Live Science's sister site Space.com.
North America is the only continent that will not get a clear view of Apophis.
For those who are lucky enough to see the passing space rock, the asteroid will appear as a "modest star passing slowly across the sky, much like a slow-moving satellite," Binzel said, and it will shine as brightly as the stars in the Big Dipper.
When you're in an unfamiliar neighborhood, rely on the locals.
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Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
A modified Saab 340B aircraft in flight powered in part by a hybrid electric system built by GE Aerospace, along with NASA, BETA Technologies, and Boeing.
GE Aerospace
An aircraft powered by a megawatt-class hybrid-electric engine developed in collaboration with NASA and built by GE Aerospace, demonstrated flight of an innovation that can inform new generations of fuel-saving aircraft power systems.
Mounted to a Saab 340B aircraft, the engine flew at Farnborough International Air Show in the United Kingdom. It was the public debut of a system that has in recent months made historic test flights, becoming the first hybrid electric-powered aircraft to fly above 30,000 feet.
“This achievement reflects what NASA does best in aeronautics: we explore bold possibilities, validate them through rigorous research and testing, and work with industry to turn breakthrough ideas into technologies that bring real value for the American people,” said Laurie Grindle, director of the Aeronautics Division within the agency’s Research and Technology Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
The testing leveraged work done through NASA’s former Electrified Powertrain Flight Demonstration project and the agency’s ongoing Subsonic Vehicle Technologies and Tools project – years of collaborative research that included key testing at NASA test facilities.
The engine integrates electric motors, a gas turbine, and energy storage capabilities. It was designed to demonstrate the capacity to power an aircraft around the size of a regional-class jet, reducing fuel burn and costs without sacrificing performance. The unit’s technology and designs are expected to be used to help develop future hybrid systems that could lower airline operating costs.
The demonstration flight came after years of rapid development for the technology. For NASA, it also validates work that stretches back to a time when hybrid aviation propulsion seemed almost beyond the horizon of possibility.
This achievement reflects what NASA does best in aeronautics: we explore bold possibilities, validate them through rigorous research and testing, and work with industry to turn breakthrough ideas into technologies that bring real value for the American people.
LAURIE A. GRINDLE
Director of the Aeronautics Division within the agency's Research and Technology Mission Directorate
“This is the culmination of more than 15 years of work, and we did that because it’s going to have an impact for aircraft that will help reduce energy use and help U.S. companies and the public,” said Ralph Jansen, aerospace engineer at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland. “It’s about having a vision that no one believes can happen and then doing the work to define and execute the research and development needed to make it happen.”
This accomplishment was possible because of the collaborative effort of hundreds of people working on Electrified Powertrain Flight Demonstration and Subsonic Vehicle Technologies and Tools projects across NASA centers, in conjunction with GE Aerospace and its partner companies.
Hybird-Electric Evolves
In recent years, aviation has seen a boom in small aircraft and drones powered by electrical systems drawing from batteries. But large passenger and cargo planes require complex engines capable of supplying massive amounts of power. So more than a decade ago when NASA began contemplating hybrid systems, just the possibility of using electric motors to supplement some energy was a daunting engineering challenge.
NASA spent about seven years performing preliminary research, working with small businesses and other partners to consider technological obstacles and the potential commercial viability of hybrid systems. During that time, the agency addressed several barriers to implementation including the power, thermal, and battery technology, and the integration of the power system, engine, and aircraft.
Through the agency’s Electrified Powertrain Flight Demonstration award, GE Aerospace and NASA worked with researchers to develop lighter and more efficient power systems and shrink key components – sometimes dramatically.
NASA and GE Aerospace also leveraged agency facilities and resources to further their research. In 2022, GE Aerospace tested an integrated version of its propulsion system at NASA’s Electric Aircraft Testbed at the agency’s Neil A. Armstrong Test Facility in Sandusky, Ohio. Testing allowed the system to operate in conditions simulating 45,000 feet in altitude, the range in which commercial single-aisle aircraft fly.
The team added components, including electric motors, power converters, propellers, and a GE Aerospace commercial engine, followed by more ground tests and eventual flight tests. For the researchers who’d spent years on the concept, seeing the engine powering an aircraft in flight was a major step in a long journey.
“I’ve got to say, I was pretty touched seeing it fly. It was just awesome,” Jansen said. “It’s just like a regular plane, which is probably the best thing of all.”
NASA’s current support for this research is through the Aeronautics Division of its Research and Technology Mission Directorate.
Seattle, Washington—sometimes known as the “Emerald City”—was glimmering in the morning sunlight when an astronaut aboard the International Space Station took this photo on June 16, 2026. The city’s parks and tree-filled neighborhoods lend a lush, green look to the metropolis, while tall buildings downtown cast long shadows and ships navigate surrounding waterways.
The broad contours of the city’s landscape and the water around it owe their shape to the advance and retreat of glaciers during the last ice age. Between roughly 18,000 and 16,000 years ago, the Puget lobe of the Cordilleran ice sheet covered the area in a mass of ice up to 3,300 feet (1,000 meters) thick. The glacier scoured the basins now occupied by Puget Sound and the region’s lakes.
The glacier left its mark above water, too. Several of Seattle’s notorious hills (of which there are seven or more, depending on who’s counting) are drumlins. These elongated mounds of glacial debris run north-south, parallel to the direction of the ice’s movement. East-west travelers in the city, facing challenging ups and downs, may attest to this topographic trend.
The ice also transported large boulders called glacial erratics from more northerly locations and deposited them around the region. A particularly large erratic, the Wedgwood Rock, stands about 20 feet (6 meters) tall and draws its name from the North Seattle neighborhood in which it rests.
June 16, 2026
In more recent times, humans have undertaken projects to rework the topography. Notable alterations include leveling Denny Hill north of downtown and filling in tideflats at the mouth of the Duwamish River south of downtown, which created around 1,300 acres of new land. Seattle’s professional sports stadiums sit atop this fill.
This photo was acquired after several development projects to update waterfront infrastructure downtown, initiated in 2010, were completed. These include a new ferry dock and terminal, a rebuilt seawall, and a tunnel to replace an above-ground highway and create more inviting public access to the waterfront.
Some replumbing of the region’s waterways is apparent from the astronaut’s perspective, as well. In the 1910s, the Army Corps of Engineers built canals on either side of Lake Union to connect Puget Sound (an inlet of the Pacific Ocean) with Lake Washington. Starting in 1916, the Montlake Cut connected Lake Washington to Lake Union, and the Ballard Locks, northwest of Lake Union, began raising and lowering watercraft between the freshwater lakes and tidal Puget Sound. As a result of this project, Lake Washington’s water level dropped about 9 feet (3 meters) and ceased draining from its natural outlet at its southern end.
Today, the waters in and around Seattle support many uses: container ships, cruise ships, car and passenger ferries, floatplanes, and recreational craft ply the sound and lakes. And as for Seattle’s emerald nickname, pockets of old-growth forest still exist within city limits, containing centuries-old trees such as Douglas fir, Western red cedar, and Western hemlock. Seattleites often spot wildlife such as bald eagles, coyotes, and sea lions in the city’s various habitats.
Astronaut photograph ISS074-E-723719 was acquired on June 16, 2026, with a Nikon Z9 digital camera using a focal length of 560 millimeters. It is provided by the ISS Crew Earth Observations Facility and the Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit at NASA Johnson Space Center. The image was taken by a member of the Expedition 74 crew. The image has been cropped and enhanced to improve contrast, and lens artifacts have been removed. The International Space Station Program supports the laboratory as part of the ISS National Lab to help astronauts take pictures of Earth that will be of the greatest value to scientists and the public, and to make those images freely available on the Internet. Additional images taken by astronauts and cosmonauts can be viewed at the NASA/JSC Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth. Story by Lindsey Doermann.
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