A quake-resistant dome house decorated with Japan's popular “Kumamon” bear character is pictured at the Aso Farm Land resort in Aso, Japan on November 6, 2017. Cabins modelled after Japanese sweets and made from polystyrene foam withstood last year's deadly earthquakes in Kumamoto prefecture. (Photo by Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters)

Mangrove in Walakiri Beach after Sunset in East Sumba, Indonesia in 2018. (Photo by Sarubabel Malau/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

Migratory flamingos arriving from Europe are seen in Port Fouad Nature Reserve, on the outskirts of Port Said Governorate, Egypt on December 12, 2022. (Photo by Mohamed Abd El Ghany/Reuters)

Horses eat hay and rest on straw at a stud farm in Wehrheim near Frankfurt, Germany, Tuesday, December 5, 2023. (Photo by Michael Probst/AP Photo)

This aerial photograph taken on January 27, 2024 shows a camel in the desert of Samawa in Iraq's southern province of al-Muthanna. (Photo by Hussein Faleh/AFP Photo)

A person holds an umbrella against strong wind and rain as he walks on a street Friday, June 2, 2023, in Kawasaki near Tokyo, as a tropical storm was approaching. (Photo by Eugene Hoshiko/AP Photo)

The dramatic moment lightning strikes the sea at Portland in Dorset in southwest England on October 24, 2022. Thundery weather and a dramatic Lightning storm pictured last night at Portland Bill. (Photo by CharlotteChapman/Bournemouth News)

China has sent its first woman into space on a mission to dock with an orbiting station, the latest step in an ambitious programme to go to the moon and on to Mars.

Photo: China's first female astronaut Liu Yang, waves during a sending off ceremony before she departs for the Shenzhou 9 spacecraft rocket launch pad at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Jiuquan, China, Saturday, June 16, 2012. China will send its first woman and two other astronauts into space Saturday to work on a temporary space station for about a week, in a key step toward becoming only the third nation to set up a permanent base in orbit. (Photo by Ng Han Guan/AP Photo)