An Israeli spacecraft rocketed toward the moon for the country's first attempted lunar landing, following a launch Thursday night by SpaceX.

A communications satellite for Indonesia was the main cargo aboard the Falcon 9 rocket, which illuminated the sky as it took flight. But Israel's privately funded lunar lander — a first not just for Israel but commercial space — generated the buzz.

Israel is to launch its first moon mission this week, sending an unmanned spacecraft to collect data to be shared with NASA, organizers said Monday.

Mark Stucky fought in the Iraq war, once buzzed a Soviet warplane over the Sea of Japan and has flown all sorts of experimental aircraft.

World powers are vying to develop so-called "hypersonic" weapons that travel several times the speed of sound, with France the latest to join a field led so far by Russia and China.

How close is human civilization to destroying the planet? The symbolic Doomsday Clock is still two minutes to midnight, as close as it has ever been, said the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists on Thursday.

The clock did not budge from last year, but that "should not be taken as a sign of stability," said Rachel Bronson, president and CEO of the group of scholars and international experts in security, nuclear, environmental and science fields.

The second woman carrying a gene-edited foetus in China is now 12 to 14 weeks into her pregnancy, according to a US physician in close contact with the researcher who claimed to have created the world's first genetically-modified babies last year.

A researcher who claimed to have created the world's first genetically-edited babies will face a Chinese police investigation, state media said Monday, as authorities confirmed that a second woman fell pregnant during the experiment.

The only total lunar eclipse this year and next came with a supermoon bonus.

On Sunday night, the moon, Earth and sun lined up to create the eclipse, which was visible throughout North and South America, where skies were clear. There won't be another until the year 2021.

A rocket carrying a satellite on a mission to deliver the world's first artificial meteor shower blasted into space on Friday, Japanese scientists said.

Iran launched a satellite criticised by the United States as a breach of a UN resolution on Tuesday but it failed to reach orbit, the telecommunications minister said.