“Google is launching balloons into near space to provide internet access to buildings below on the ground. About 30 of the superpressure balloons are being launched from New Zealand from where they will drift around the world on a controlled path. Attached equipment will offer 3G-like speeds to 50 testers in the country”. – BBC News. Photo: A Google balloon sails through the air with the Southern Alps mountains in the background, in Tekapo, New Zealand. (Photo by Jon Shenk/Associated Press)

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)

A fox cub gets up to mischief in a garden in Halifax, West Yorkshire on May 10, 2022. The homeowners say a family of foxes visit regularly from their nearby den. (Photo by Steve Midgley/Solent News)

A woman jumps out of a street art object in the center of the Ukrainian capital of Kiev during a warm autumn day on September 25, 2020. (Photo by Sergei Supinsky/AFP Photo)

An actor playing the role of the Conductor, poses for a photograph alongside the Polar Express Train Ride at the Swanage Railway in Dorset, UK on Thursday, November 16, 2023, a festive-themed train journey based on the Polar Express book and film, which invites visitors to travel in their pyjamas and dressing gowns as they journey from Swanage to the “North Pole”. (Photo by Andrew Matthews/PA Images via Getty Images)

A woman joyfully leaps across a body of water, carrying a pheasant-decorated Louis Vuitton bag and a paint palette in the last decade of January 2025 in Coldstream, Scottish Borers. (Photo by Phil Wilkinson/The Times)

Sophie Roberts admires Angel of the Trench by artists Laura and Paul Carey at the Himalayan Garden and Sculpture Park near Masham, North Yorkshire, UK on October 14, 2025. (Photo by James Glossop/Times Media Ltd)

Highly commended birds : Crested guan by Tim Hunt (UK). ‘This photo shows a crested guan in the cloud forests of Costa Rica as it pauses while foraging on a lone branch. Due to the clouds that are so typical for this habitat, I could often only photograph the bird’s silhouette against a grey sky. But then, for a short moment only, the sun broke through the clouds, and I overexposed the image by over two stops in order to blow out the background and allow this beautifully marked bird to stand out’. (Photo by Tim Hunt/GDT European Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2015)