People take part in the Burning of the Clavie fire festival in Burghead, Moray, UK on Saturday, January 11, 2025. Burghead welcomes in the New Year twice each year, on both January 11th and the more traditional January 1st. (Photo by Jane Barlow/PA Images via Getty Images)

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)

North Korean cheerleaders arrive at a rest stop, or service station, as their bus convoy carrying a 280- member delegation on its way to the 2018 Pyeongchang winter Olympic games, makes its way past Gapyeong on February 7, 2018 More than 200 young North Korean women arrived in South Korea to root for athletes from both sides of the peninsula at the Winter Olympics. (Photo by Ed Jones/AFP Photo)

A boy plays on the glass at Thailand's first skywalk in Bangkok, Thailand on November 18, 2018. (Photo by Soe Zeya Tun/Reuters)

People collect fish on the beach during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Da Nang, Vietnam on May 6, 2020. (Photo by Kham via Reuters)

Cardi B attends the Fanatics Super Bowl Party at College Football Hall of Fame on February 2, 2019 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Shareif Ziyadat/WireImage)

Afghan girls ride a donkey along a street in Argo district at Badakhshan province on July 30, 2024. (Photo by Omer Abrar/AFP Photo)

A couple wearing protective masks take a picture of a rose on Valentine's Day in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on February 14, 2022. (Photo by Hasnoor Hussain/Reuters)