10 Most Iconic Fictional Planets In Video Games

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One of the most fun things about any kind of fiction, video games included, is the potential to take us to new and different worlds.

There are 6 total planetary locations that players can visit in Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. Check out how they stack up.

Games with a sci-fi or fantasy tilt can take us to all kinds of different planets, from fantastical worlds rich with mysterious magic to hyper-advanced, wholly artificial constructs.

There have been more named worlds than you can count in games over the years, but there are definitely a few that stick in our minds.

Planet Popstar is the main setting of the Kirby series, and the home of Kirby, King Dedede, Meta Knight, and all those other cute little critters.

Despite looking like a giant yellow star from space, its surface is perfectly habitable, with a variety of different biomes like grasslands, deserts, and so on.

Besides its giant star shape, Popstar is a pretty unassuming planet in the grand scheme of things, which is why it's kind of weird how often it seems to attract extraterrestrial and extradimensional threats like Nightmare, Haltmann Works, Jambastion, and Dark Matter.

Of course, Kirby himself is a bit of an extraterrestrial super-organism. You know what they say: beings of overwhelming power tend to attract one another, and nobody who's picked a fight with Kirbs and his friends has stuck around to talk about it.

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'UFO Came So Close, I Could Have Touched It,' Robbie Williams Claims

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Robbie Williams has doubled down on his unwavering belief in extraterrestrial beings. During an interview on the Weaponized podcast, the 51-year-old star recalled a time nearly 20 years ago when he spotted what he believed to be two UFOs soaring through the Los Angeles skies so close that he felt he ⁘could have hit it with a tennis ball.⁘

In another strange twist, while composing his song 'Arizona' - which is about alien contact - a mysterious ⁘gold ball of light⁘ manifested within the studio in sync with the song.

The Better Man star previously confessed he's considered that his fame might make him a target for extraterrestrials, possibly intending for him to act as their 'messenger'.

Contemplating his high-profile status, he mused: ⁘I often wonder if I'm supposed to see it because of my public platform. Am I supposed to see this so I can talk about it?⁘

Leading UFO expert and documentary filmmaker Mark Christopher Lee supports Robbie's claims and suggests a peculiar connection between musicians and UFO sightings.

Speaking to the Daily Star, he said: ⁘People love Robbie, he speaks the truth, he's from the heart. There is also a link between musicians and UFOs. I do think there is that element.

⁘I think it's the part of the brain that we're using, that creative side, which is making that contact and what these phenomena is picking up on. It's the collective unconscious. We're all connected and connected to the universe and beyond.⁘

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Lauren Sánchez Part Of Blue Origin's All-Female Crew Going To Space

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The space technology company, founded by Jeff Bezos, will embark on its latest mission this spring with an all-female crew that includes Katy Perry, Lauren Sánchez and several other notable names.

Per a press release, this marks the 11th human flight for Blue Origins' New Shepard program and the 31st flight since its founding. So far, 52 people have flown with the program above the Kármán line, which Blue Origins defines as "the internationally recognized boundary of space."

Organized by Lauren Sánchez , an aviation expert who is engaged to Bezos, the flight named NS-31 will take place in the spring of 2025.

Sánchez is the founder of Black Ops Aviation, the first female-owned and operated aerial film and production company. In 2024, she earned the Elling Halvorson Vertical Flight Hall of Fame Award.

Sánchez is "honored to lead a team of explorers on a mission that will challenge their perspectives of Earth, empower them to share their own stories, and create lasting impact that will inspire generations to come," per the Blue Origin press release.

Katy Perry is a pop star who holds the honor of being Capitol Records' biggest-selling female artist of all time, per Blue Origins. Her hits include "Roar," "Firework," "Last Friday Night," "California Gurls" and more.

Everything We Know About Blue Origin's All-Women Space Crew

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On February 27, Blue Origin announced an all-female crew for its private NS-31 mission to space, in what appears to be an effort to promote space tourism. The group of six women, including Katy Perry and Gayle King, was organized by the vice chair of the Bezos Earth Fund, Lauren Sanchez, an Emmy Award–winning journalist and aerial filmmaker who is currently engaged to Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos.

According to Blue Origin, the aerospace company founded by Bezos, its New Shephard program has already flown 52 people "above the Kármán line,⁘ which is 62 miles above Earth and considered the internationally recognized boundary of space. What do we know about this mission and the women on board? Here's everything we've learned so far.

According to the announcement, Sanchez "brought the mission together" and is "honored to lead a team of explorers on a mission that will challenge their perspectives of Earth, empower them to share their own stories, and create lasting impact that will inspire generations to come."

Beyond her role at Bezos Earth Fund, Sanchez is a licensed helicopter pilot and the founder of Black Ops Aviation, "the first female-owned and operated aerial film and production company."

Sanchez's crew includes famous journalist Gayle King and pop star Katy Perry, as well as former NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, bioastronautics research scientist Amanda Nguyen, and film producer Kerianne Flynn. "I'm so afraid, but I'm also so excited," King said while announcing the her trip on CBS Mornings , revealing that "the crew" already created a group chat.

The all-women flight will launch this spring, though the official date has not yet been announced.

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Odin Probe Blasts Off On SpaceX Rocket To Survey Asteroid For Possible Mining Mission | Science...

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A second mission would land on the asteroid and test for platinum and other elements - the first mining expeditions could then follow.

A privately-built spacecraft has embarked on an unprecedented deep space mission to scout out an asteroid's potential for mining.

The probe, called Odin, was launched on a SpaceX rocket alongside a robotic moon lander that will drill for water and a lunar orbiter that will map water resources with an instrument built by the University of Oxford.

The asteroid mission is a high-risk venture that heralds a new dawn of commercial exploitation of our celestial neighbours.

Odin is destined for asteroid 2022 OB5 that's believed to be rich in platinum and similar metals, which are critical for electronic, medical and green technology.

Matt Gialich, engineer and co-founder of startup AstroForge, told Sky News that mining the metals on Earth costs $900 an ounce (⁘25,000 per kg).

"The problem is that on Earth we have mined all of the good sources of platinum group metals," he said.

"Everything we're looking at now is thousands of meters under the Earth. It's actually very, very difficult to mine.

"But we know this exists in space . We know it's readily available. For our mission, instead of going down, we want to go up."

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Nico Harrison Was Determined To Trade Luka To Avoid Mavs Orbiting Doncic

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Even though Luka Dončić is generally regarded as one of the five best active players in the NBA and had made the All-NBA first team five times by the age of 25, the Dallas Mavericks seemed to have no interest in him being their franchise player.

Per NBA insider Marc Stein , Mavs general manager Nico Harrison was ⁘determined⁘ to trade Dončić no later than this summer because they didn't want to build a team orbiting around the five-time All-Star:

⁘Yet naturally now, with a bit of distance from the initial shock, you have begun to hear more of the whispers that the Mavericks had somehow concealed for months. Whispers via league sources suggesting that Dallas' decision-makers, most notably general manager Nico Harrison, no longer wanted Planet Mavericks to orbit around Dončić and had grown determined to trade him by this summer at the latest.⁘

In the immediate aftermath of the trade that sent Dončić to the Los Angeles Lakers, it was known the Mavs had ⁘ major concerns ⁘ about his conditioning issues as he was set to become eligible for a supermax contract this summer.

The Athletic's  Christian Clark, Mike Vorkunov and Fred Katz reported on Feb. 17 that Dallas was ⁘never going to offer⁘ Dončić the five-year, $345 million supermax extension, adding credence to the notion he would've been traded in the offseason if the Lakers' deal hadn't come to fruition.

Speaking to ESPN's Tim MacMahon in the aftermath of the trade (h/t ESPN's Dave McMenamin ), Harrison said his motivation behind the trade was to build an elite defensive team with Anthony Davis as the focal point that can compete for a title.

⁘I believe that defense wins championships,⁘ Harrison said ⁘I believe that getting an All-Defensive center and an All-NBA player with a defensive mindset gives us a better chance. We're built to win now and in the future.⁘

There's definitely something to the notion that Dončić may not age gracefully. He's only played 70 games in a season twice in his career and has missed at least 12 games in four consecutive seasons, including the 2024-25 campaign.

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Why Humanoid Robots Are Missing The Point

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Science fiction, from The Jetsons to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, is replete with humanoid robots. But for a long time in the real world, such robots have been a novelty at best and a punchline at worst. Somehow, though, in the last few years, things have shifted. More than a handful of companies are developing humanoid robots, and these technological simulacra have begun popping up in automobile factories and shipping outfits. Some firms are even promising household robots. Still, the most important question has yet to be satisfyingly answered: what is the point? Why make a robot shaped like⁘

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New Study Claims Our Solar System Is Home To Millions Of Interstellar Objects

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Our solar system may not be as isolated as we once thought. According to a new study, more than 1 million interstellar objects could be lurking in the outer reaches of our cosmic neighborhood, quietly drifting in the Oort Cloud⁘the vast, icy shell of comets and asteroids at the edge of the solar system.

The researchers involved in the new study say these aren⁘t just random space rocks, either. Instead, they argue they⁘ve traveled light-years, originating from Alpha Centauri, the closest star system to Earth. Until now, though, astronomers have only confirmed two interstellar visitors.

The first interstellar object was ⁘Oumuamua, an elongated space rock that some even speculated was an alien spacecraft in 2017, and the comet Borisov in 2019. The latter behaved more like a typical comet but still appeared to have traveled from well beyond our solar system.

However, new simulations suggest that these weren⁘t isolated objects. Instead, the universe is full of these intriguing cosmic hitchhikers , and many may have liked the Oort Cloud so much that they⁘ve taken up permanent residence here⁘at least in a manner of speaking.

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Seven Planets Align In UK Skies This Week For Last Time Until 2040

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Skywatchers are in for a treat this week as seven planets - Mars, Jupiter, Uranus, Venus, Neptune, Mercury, and Saturn will all be briefly visible in the evening sky.

This phenomenon, known as a 'planetary parade' is a rare sight, and it will be the last time seven planets can be seen simultaneously so well until 2040.

The best chance to see as many planets as possible will be just after sunset on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

A good view of the horizon and clear skies will offer the best chance of spotting them all. However, the window to see all seven planets will be very brief.

As the sun sets, Saturn and Mercury will also be setting, making them particularly difficult to see.

⁘You really only have a few minutes after sunset to catch them before they drop below the horizon. After that, you'll still be able to see Venus, Jupiter, and Mars clearly for a much longer time,⁘ Dr Bloomer added.

As they orbit at different speeds and distances from the Sun, there are moments when they appear to line up from Earth's perspective creating a spectacular visual display, although the planets remain separated by vast distances in space.

What Did The Pentagon Reveal About Bizarre Egg-shaped UFO Case In New Announcement?

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T he Pentagon has officially launched an investigation into claims made by United States government contractor Jake Barber , who alleges he was involved in secret missions to recover alien technology.

Barber, who came forward in January, described piloting helicopters during classified operations and encountering an "egg-shaped" craft with no visible engine or thermal signatures.

"I saw an egg, a white egg," Barber told NewsNation, emphasizing that the object defied anything he had ever seen before.

Barber's report has now been added to the 21 ongoing UAP (unidentified anomalous phenomena) investigations being conducted by the Department of Defense . His case joins a growing list of sightings under review by the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), which recently disclosed receiving 757 UAP reports between May 2023 and June 2024. Among these cases, 272 incidents occurred before 2023 but had never been publicly acknowledged until now.

AARO is the first government office dedicated to unifying efforts across the Department of Defense and other agencies to systematically collect, analyze, and report UAP data.

Currently, only military personnel can submit reports directly to AARO through their chain of command, while civilian pilots are instructed to notify air traffic control, which then relays information to the Federal Aviation Administration and the DoD.

However, no official reporting mechanism exists for everyday citizens, leaving independent organizations like the National UFO Reporting Center as the primary option for public sightings.

Amid growing public interest, Congress is also stepping in. Representative Anna Paulina Luna has been appointed to lead a new task force aimed at declassifying government secrets, including information related to UFOs. House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer has stated that Luna is committed to ensuring greater transparency and ending long-standing secrecy.

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NASA Preps For Moon Launch: What To Know About Water-hunting Mission

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The U.S. company that made history in 2024 with an uncrewed lunar landing is looking to do it again .

The second lunar lander developed and operated by Intuitive Machines, a Houston, Texas-based space exploration company, is set to launch this week for the moon, according to NASA . The U.S. space agency is paying top dollar to finance the mission, which will see to the delivery of a number of scientific instruments that will hunt for water under the lunar surface.

Intuitive Machines etched its name in the history books a year ago when its spacecraft, Odysseus, became the first commercially-built lunar lander to ever make it to the moon. The lunar mission also marked the United State's return to the moon for the first time in more than five decades since NASA's Apollo era came to an end.

NASA's Artemis campaign envisions the moon as being a crucial pit stop to prepare U.S. astronauts and their vehicles to travel onward to Mars .

Athena, the name of the six-legged Nova-C lander, is carrying a number of scientific instruments meant to pave the way for astronauts to return to the lunar surface as early as 2027.

The solar-powered Athena lander, a hexagonal cylinder capable of carrying up to 300 pounds of cargo, will prominently carry a drill and a mass spectrometer,  NASA said . Drilling operations will seek to detect and measure the potential presence of gases from beneath the lunar soil.

Other objectives including testing a a Nokia LTE 4G communications system and deploying a propulsive drone capable of hopping across the lunar surface.

An Asteroid Could Hit Earth In 2032, NASA Says. Here's What To Know About The Potential "City...

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An asteroid nearly the size of a football field now has roughly a 0.28% chance of hitting Earth in about eight years, NASA says ⁘ though at one point earlier its estimate reached as high as 3.1%. Such an impact, if it occurred, would have the potential for city-level devastation, depending on where it strikes.

CBS News space consultant Bill Harwood said if it landed in a populated area, it would "be truly catastrophic," but the effects would be localized.

"At this point, it's 'Let's pay a lot of attention, let's get as many assets as we can observing it,'" Bruce Betts, chief scientist of The Planetary Society, told the AFP news agency.

Dubbed 2024 YR4 , the asteroid was first spotted on December 27, 2024, by the El Sauce Observatory in Chile. Based on its brightness, astronomers estimate it is between 130 and 300 feet wide.

"An asteroid this size impacts Earth on average every few thousand years and could cause severe damage to a local region," the European Space Agency said in a statement .

By New Year's Eve, it had landed on the desk of Kelly Fast, acting planetary defense officer at U.S. space agency NASA, as an object of concern.

"You get observations, they drop off again. This one looked like it had the potential to stick around," she told AFP.

The risk assessment kept climbing, and on Jan. 29, the International Asteroid Warning Network (IAWN), a global planetary defense collaboration, issued a memo.

SpaceX Launches 22 Starlink Internet Satellites From California

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Evrim Ağacı - Karanlığı bilimle fethet!

Moleküler evrim hızı, bir popülasyon içerisinde DNA veya protein dizilerindeki mutasyon ların ne sıklıkla sabitlendiğini (yani popülasyondaki bireylerin çoğunda gözlendiğini) ölçer. Mutasyon hızı ise belirli bir zaman aralığında DNA veya protein dizisinde meydana gelen değişim miktarını tanı mlar. Birbirine sıkı sıkıya bağlı bu iki kavram, moleküler evrim anlayışımızın temelini oluşturur.

Örneğin moleküler saat kuramı (Zuckerkandl ve Pauling 1962), zaman ilerledikçe bir protein dizisinde sabitlenen amino asit mutasyonlarının miktarının da artacağını öngörür. Bu durumda, eğer mutasyon hızının belirli bir proteinin evrimsel soy hatları boyunca aynı olduğu varsayılırsa, moleküler evrim hızının da sabit olması beklenir (Görsel 1).

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SpaceX launched another set of its Starlink internet satellites from southern California on Saturday evening (Feb 22).

A Falcon 9 rocket carrying 22 Starlink spacecraft lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Station at 8:38 p.m. EST (5:38 p.m. local time or 0138 GMT Feb. 23).

As to plan, the Falcon 9's first stage came back to Earth about eight minutes after liftoff. It touched down on the drone ship "Of Course I Still Love You," which was stationed in the Pacific Ocean.

The Falcon 9's upper stage, meanwhile, continued to haul the Starlink satellites to low Earth orbit (LEO), where there were to be deployed about 62 minutes after liftoff.

The Starlink megaconstellation ⁘ the biggest ever assembled ⁘ currently consists of more than 7,000 operational spacecraft, according to astrophysicist and satellite tracker Jonathan McDowell.

Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: community@space.com.

Robert Pearlman is a space historian, journalist and the founder and editor of collectSPACE.com , a daily news publication and community devoted to space history with a particular focus on how and where space exploration intersects with pop culture. Pearlman is also a contributing writer for Space.com and co-author of "Space Stations: The Art, Science, and Reality of Working in Space⁘ published by Smithsonian Books in 2018.In 2009, he was inducted into the U.S. Space Camp Hall of Fame in Huntsville, Alabama. In 2021, he was honored by the American Astronautical Society with the Ordway Award for Sustained Excellence in Spaceflight History. In 2023, the National Space Club Florida Committee recognized Pearlman with the Kolcum News and Communications Award for excellence in telling the space story along the Space Coast and throughout the world.

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