Solar energy generation keeps on becoming cheaper and more efficient, but some basic limitations will always apply: solar panels can only generate power during the daytime, and much of the sunlight is absorbed by the atmosphere as it shines downward. So ESA is working on the concept of collecting solar power up in orbit, where sunlight is up to 11 times more intense than across European territory, then beaming it down to the ground for use.

As part of that effort, a new project looks into designing solar-power satellites, which would become the largest structures ever built in space. Frazer-Nash Consultancy will study the modular construction of solar-power satellites, to efficiently disassemble them as they come to their end-of-life for reuse or recycling.

The sixth stage of aligning NASA's James Webb Space Telescope's mirrors to its scientific instruments so they will create the most accurate and focused images possible has concluded. While the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) continues its cooldown, optics teams have successfully aligned the rest of the observatory's onboard instruments to Webb's mirrors. Previous alignment efforts were so accurate that the team concluded no additional adjustments to the secondary mirror are necessary until the seventh and final stage, which will involve MIRI when it has fully cooled.

"As a general rule, the commissioning process starts with coarse corrections and then moves into fine corrections. The early secondary mirror coarse corrections, however, were so successful that the fine corrections in the first iteration of Phase Six were unnecessary," said Chanda Walker, Webb wavefront sensing and control scientist, Ball Aerospace. "This accomplishment was due to many years of planning and great teamwork among the wavefront sensing team."

Throughout the majority of the alignment process, Webb's 18 hexagonal mirrors and secondary mirror were focused into alignment to the Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) instrument only.

A large metal ring and sphere that villagers in rural western India said fell from the sky over the weekend could be from a Chinese rocket launched into space last year, officials told local media.

The metal ring—reportedly two to three metres (6.5-10 feet) in diameter and weighing over 40 kilogrammes (90 pounds)—was discovered in a village field in Maharashtra state late on Saturday, district collector Ajay Gulhane told the Press Trust of India.

"We were preparing a community feast, when the sky blazed with the red disc which fell with a bang on an open plot in the village," an unnamed woman in Maharashtra's Chandrapur district told The Times of India.

"People ran to their home fearing (an) explosion and remained inside for nearly half an hour."

Another object—a large, metal ball around half a metre (1.5 feet) in diameter—fell in another village in the district, Gulhane told PTI.

"It has been collected for examination. We had sent (junior officials) to every village in the district to find if more parts of objects, if any, are lying scattered."

There were no reports of injuries or structural damage.

An Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) official told the Times that the timing of the objects' arrival was the "closest match" to the re-entry times on Saturday for debris from a Chinese rocket launched in February 2021.