The Strawberry Moon rises June 29. Here's what to expect from June's full moon

• NASA astronauts Chris Williams and Jessica Meir are conducting a spacewalk today, June 30, to repair the International Space Station's Canadarm2 robotic arm. • The mission focuses on fixing the critical robotic system, with live coverage of the operation beginning at 7:00 a.m. ET.

• Researchers highlighted several overlooked science stories from June, including the science of soccer's scissors feint and the physics of poop's coiled shape. • The list also featured a breakthrough on boron buckyballs and progress on deciphering the Herculaneum scrolls, which were damaged by the Vesuvius eruption.

• The global space research funding has surpassed $130 billion annually, making 2026 one of the most heavily financed years in space exploration history. • Notable growth is seen in companies like Starlink, with subscriber counts increasing from 2.3 million in 2023 to 10.3 million by Q1 2026.

• The phenomenon known as "cold welding" occurs in space when two clean pieces of the same metal touch and fuse together into a single piece. • Unlike on Earth, where an oxide layer forms on metal surfaces due to oxygen, the vacuum of space prevents this layer from developing, allowing atoms to bond directly.

• NASA is initiating a $30 million salvage operation as early as this week to prevent an aging telescope from falling back to Earth. • The mission involves launching a robotic "lifesaver" to rescue the Swift telescope, which is designed to rapidly capture astronomical events like gamma ray bursts.

• The Score project (Systematizing Confidence in Open Research and Evidence) has published findings in the journal Nature regarding the reliability of social science research. • The study involved 865 experts over a seven-year period to evaluate the consistency and reproducibility of academic studies.

• Researchers have developed a new scientific methodology for measuring environmental shifts with unprecedented precision. • By isolating specific markers, the team successfully mapped trajectories of change in temperature across various climate zones that were previously obscured by data noise.

• Northrop Grumman is scheduled to launch a rescue mission on June 30 to save NASA's Swift space telescope. • The mission will utilize a unique deployment method, launching a rocket from an airplane to boost the telescope's altitude.

• New state-of-the-art stellar evolution models suggest that Earth may avoid being engulfed when the sun eventually dies. • While the sun is expected to expand to hundreds of times its current size during its red giant phase, these models hint that the planet might escape this fate.

• A new study suggests Earth may have been sending microbes to Venus for billions of years through asteroid impacts. • Researchers found that these microbes could survive the journey to Venus and end up in its clouds.

• NASA astronaut Jessica Meir captured high-resolution images of towering thunderclouds while stationed aboard the International Space Station. • The photographs highlight the immense scale and dynamism of Earth's atmospheric weather systems from an orbital perspective.