SCIENCE
There’s a new space race – will the billionaires win? | Science
If there is one thing we can rely on in this world, it is human hubris, and space and astronomy are no exception.
The ancients believed that everything revolved around Earth. In the 16th century, Copernicus and his peers overturned that view with the heliocentric model. Since then, telescopes and spacecraft have revealed just how insignificant we are. There are hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy, the Milky Way, each star a sun like ours, many with planets orbiting them. In 1995, the Hubble space telescope captured its first deep-field image: this showed us that there are hundreds of billions of galaxies in our known universe, huge wheeling collections of stars dispersed through space.
Let’s take the International Astronomical Union’s definition of space as everything in the universe apart from our planet and atmosphere. Asking the question “who owns space?” seems laughable. Hubris at a whole new level. The idea that we could lay claim to the rest of the universe is beyond conceit. It’s like a group of atoms in my little toe becoming sentient and declaring that they now own my whole body.
A few years ago, I postulated that space exploration could be divided into three distinct eras. The first was confrontation. It was the second world war that fuelled our first forays into the abyss, as this proved to be an effective way of lobbing munitions further. The space race was born from military competition – in a bid to establish superiority. The second era brought collaboration. The formation of the European Space Agency in 1975 and that symbolic docking between Soviet and American space vehicles symbolised what humanity could achieve collectively. But now we’re on the verge of a third era: commercialisation. Space exploration is no longer just the domain of nations, but of billionaires, private companies and start-ups promising holidays in orbit.
Space should be regarded as a shared domain, similar to the high seas or Antarctica
Of course, the space industry has been commercial for decades – many communications satellites, Earth-observation systems and some launch vehicles are privately funded and operated. But what’s changing is that humans themselves are now part of the business plan, as we move from exploration to possible exploitation. Private space stations, space tourism, lunar and asteroid mining – this is the new frontier. So the question of ownership suddenly has legal, ethical and economic urgency.
Legally speaking, the groundwork for managing space was laid long ago. In the late 1950s and early 60s, as rockets first breached Earth’s atmosphere, the United Nations drafted agreements to govern activities beyond our planet. The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 set out some remarkably idealistic principles: “The exploration and use of outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries, irrespective of their degree of economic or scientific development, and shall be the province of all mankind.” I would reword it to humankind, but I do like the sentiment.
It’s a beautiful vision, but potentially an increasingly fragile one. As technology advances, these noble principles will come face to face with economic reality. When a commercial company finds a valuable mineral deposit on the moon or an asteroid, who gets to profit?
I would argue that commercialisation is necessary – space needs to pay for itself, because without profit, humanity will stay “terra-bound” for centuries. Exploration is expensive, and governments alone can’t afford to foot the bill. If mining helium-3 or capturing asteroids helps fund missions that expand our knowledge, capabilities and improve our husbandry of our planet, that could be a good thing. But commercialisation must come with equity and transparency. Otherwise, we risk repeating the mistakes of our past, but on a truly cosmic scale.
The comparison I often like to make is with the East India Company: a private British enterprise that became so powerful it could shape the politics of nations and at times had an army twice the size of Britain’s. It began as trade; it ended in domination. Could a similar dynamic unfold locally in our solar system, where a handful of today’s tech giants and billionaires control access to orbit, communications, and eventually, extraterrestrial resources? A monopoly in space would be dangerous for humanity. The challenge is to encourage innovation and investment without ceding ownership of the cosmos to a few individuals or organisations.
The moon is a fascinating case study. For scientists, it serves as a natural laboratory – a place to study planetary history and test new technologies. But it’s also an appealing commercial target. There’s water ice at its poles, which can be split into hydrogen and oxygen to make rocket fuel. Its gravity is only one-sixth of Earth’s, making it a sound launch base for deeper space exploration. And some have suggested mining the lunar surface for helium-3, a potential fuel for future fusion reactors. The possibilities are tantalising. But who decides how the moon’s resources should be used, and by whom?
The Outer Space Treaty forbids national appropriation, but it doesn’t explicitly prohibit private companies from extracting resources. That ambiguity has prompted countries such as the United States and Luxembourg to pass their own space-mining laws, granting rights to their domestic firms. Yet if each nation makes its own rules, could the result be chaos like the early wild west – or even conflict? Space, by its nature, demands global regulation.
That’s why I believe we need to revive the spirit of the early treaties, not just in words but through action. Space should be regarded as a shared domain, similar to the high seas or, perhaps more fittingly, Antarctica. No one owns Antarctica. It is protected for peaceful research under an international agreement. That hasn’t stopped some countries from eyeing its minerals, but the principle remains: collective stewardship. Space warrants the same approach. The way we behave in the third era of space will define not just the future of exploration, but the kind of species we are. Do we carry our old rivalries and greed into the stars, or do we finally learn to act as one planet, united by curiosity and care?
As always, I’m hopeful. I trust the new generation to do a better job, and space has a way of putting things into perspective. When astronauts look down at Earth from orbit, they describe a sense of awe, known as the “overview effect”. They see our planet as it really is, fragile and shared. Perhaps if we can hold on to that view, even as we venture further out, we might be able to reach for the stars in a way that benefits everyone.
Dame Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock will deliver the 2025 Christmas Lectures from the Royal Institution.
Further reading
Orbital by Samantha Harvey (Jonathan Cape, £9.99)
Who Owns the Moon? by AC Grayling (Oneworld, £10.99)
A City on Mars by Dr Kelly Weinersmith and Zach Weinersmith (Penguin, £11.69)
The winter solstice is here today (Dec. 21), marking the shortest day and longest night of the year for the Northern Hemisphere.
As the astronomical start of winter, today is the moment the sun reaches its lowest point in the sky as seen from Earth. At noon, it appears directly over the Tropic of Capricorn, a latitude of 23.5 degrees south, creating the least daylight of the year for the Northern Hemisphere, which is tilted as far from the sun as it gets.
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With the sun tracking low across the horizon, its rays arrive at a shallow angle, spreading light over a larger area and reducing heating. It’s this lower solar angle, not our distance from the sun, that drives the coldest months of the year. But from this point forward, daylight will slowly begin to increase as we begin the slow march toward spring.
Earth’s seasons exist because our planet is tilted by 23.5 degrees on its axis. As Earth orbits the sun, different hemispheres lean toward or away from it, changing the intensity and duration of sunlight. When the Northern Hemisphere tilts toward the sun, we get summer; when it tilts away — as it does now — we have winter.
Meanwhile, the Southern Hemisphere is experiencing its summer solstice today, enjoying the longest day of the year.
Although many assume winter corresponds to Earth being farther from the sun, the opposite is true. Earth actually reaches perihelion, its closest point to the sun, early next month on Jan. 3, 2026. At that moment, our planet will sit about 91.4 million miles (147.1 million kilometers) from the sun, slightly closer than its average distance of 93 million miles (149.6 million km).
Many cultures mark the winter solstice as a moment of renewal and the symbolic return of light. Starting tomorrow, daylight begins to grow again, a reminder that brighter, warmer days are on the way.
SCIENCE
Glittering new James Webb telescope image shows an ‘intricate web of chaos’ — Space photo of the week
Webb and Chandra spot a cosmic car crash (Image credit: Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Infrared: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI/Webb; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare)
QUICK FACTS
What it is: The spiral galaxies NGC 2207 and IC 2163
Where it is: 120 million light-years away, in the constellation Canis Major
When it was shared: Dec. 1, 2025
One of JWST’s core tasks, according to NASA, is to provide scientists with a clear view of the centers of merging galaxies and thereby inform a new generation of models that will describe how galaxies interact and merge. NGC 2207 and IC 2163 are the perfect targets.
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In the image, JWST’s midinfrared data appear in white, gray and red, primarily showing the dust and cooler material within the galaxies’ cores and spiral arms. Chandra’s X-ray data are shown in blue, highlighting high-energy regions of the two galaxies — binary stars, the remnants of dead stars, and regions where supernovas have occurred.
The spectacular layered image of NGC 2207 and IC 2163 is one of four Chandra-based composites that were published at the same time. The other three include NGC 6334, a star-forming region known for its arcs of glowing gas and dust; supernova remnant G272.2-0.3, where hot X-ray-emitting gas fills an expanding shell; and a star system called R Aquarii, where a white dwarf star sucks material from a red giant star.
Each image merges Chandra’s view of the high-energy universe with data from JWST (launched in 2021), the Hubble Space Telescope (launched in 1990) and the Spitzer Space Telescope (active between 2003 and 2020), as well as from ground-based telescopes.
For more sublime space images, check out our Space Photo of the Week archives.
Netflix is one of the best streaming services available and Stranger Things is one of its flagship shows. So, to celebrate the final season coming to the small screen, and the holiday season too, we’ve rounded up the best Stranger Things gifts on the market.
Here, you’ll find a range of gifts from clothes to collectibles to trinkets, replicas and more. The holiday season is here and the final episodes of Stranger Things will air on Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve, so there’s never been a better time to search for the best Stranger Things gifts out there. While we haven’t reviewed any of the items we’ve highlighted, we wouldn’t include them if we didn’t recommend having them.
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A paraplegic engineer from Germany blasted off on a dream-come-true rocket ride with five other passengers on Saturday, leaving her wheelchair behind to float in space while beholding Earth from on high.
Severely injured in a mountain bike accident seven years ago, Michaela Benthaus became the first wheelchair user in space, launching from west Texas with Jeff Bezos’s company Blue Origin. She was accompanied by a retired SpaceX executive also born in Germany, Hans Koenigsmann, who helped organize and, along with Blue Origin, sponsored her trip. Their ticket prices were not divulged.
An ecstatic Benthaus said she laughed all the way up – the capsule soared more than 65 miles (105km) – and tried to turn upside down once in space.
“It was the coolest experience,” she said shortly after landing.
The 10-minute space-skimming flight required only minor adjustments to accommodate Benthaus, according to the company. That’s because the autonomous New Shepard capsule was designed with accessibility in mind, “making it more accessible to a wider range of people than traditional spaceflight”, said Blue Origin’s Jake Mills, an engineer who trained the crew and assisted them on launch day.
Among Blue Origin’s previous space tourists: those with limited mobility and impaired sight or hearing, and a pair of 90-year-olds.
For Benthaus, Blue Origin added a patient transfer board so she could scoot between the capsule’s hatch and her seat. The recovery team also unrolled a carpet on the desert floor after touchdown, providing immediate access to her wheelchair, which she left behind at liftoff. She practiced in advance, with Koenigsmann taking part with the design and testing. An elevator was already in place at the launch pad to ascend the seven stories to the capsule perched atop the rocket.
Benthaus, 33, part of the European Space Agency’s graduate trainee program in the Netherlands, experienced snippets of weightlessness during a parabolic airplane flight out of Houston in 2022. Less than two years later, she took part in a two-week simulated space mission in Poland.
“I never really thought that going on a spaceflight would be a real option for me because even as like a super healthy person, it’s like so competitive, right?” she told the Associated Press ahead of the flight.
Her accident dashed whatever hope she had. “There is like no history of people with disabilities flying to space,” she said.
When Koenigsmann approached her last year about the possibility of flying on Blue Origin and experiencing more than three minutes of weightlessness on a space hop, Benthaus thought there might be a misunderstanding. But there wasn’t, and she immediately signed on.
It’s a private mission for Benthaus with no involvement by the European Space Agency (ESA), which this year cleared reserve astronaut John McFall, an amputee, for a future flight to the International Space Station. The former British Paralympian lost his right leg in a motorcycle accident when he was a teenager.
An injured spinal cord means Benthaus can’t walk at all, unlike McFall, who uses a prosthetic leg and could evacuate a space capsule in an emergency at touchdown by himself. Koenigsmann was designated before flight as her emergency helper; he and Mills lifted her out of the capsule and down the short flight of steps at flight’s end.
“You should never give up on your dreams, right?” Benthaus urged after touchdown.
Benthaus was adamant about doing as much as she could by herself. Her goal is to make not only space accessible to disabled people, but to improve accessibility on Earth too.
While getting lots of positive feedback within “my space bubble”, she said outsiders aren’t always as inclusive.
“I really hope it’s opening up for people like me, like I hope I’m only the start,” she said.
Besides Koenigsmann, Benthaus shared the ride with business executives and investors, and a computer scientist. They raised Blue Origin’s list of space travelers to 86.
Bezos, the billionaire founder of Amazon, created Blue Origin in 2000 and launched its first passenger spaceflight in 2021. The company has since delivered spacecraft to orbit from Cape Canaveral, Florida, using the bigger and more powerful New Glenn rocket, and is working to send landers to the moon.
A rare dinosaur discovery sheds new light on the evolution of flight. Fossils of dinosaurs found with well-preserved feathers suggest that some of these animals were no longer capable of flight. The researchers explain that even a detail as subtle as how feathers are replaced can dramatically reshape our understanding of how flight evolved, revealing […]
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As Avatar: Fire and Ash hits cinemas worldwide, we figured now is the perfect time to step back and take a look at director James Cameron’s entire sci-fi slate, ranking them from worst to best.
The Canadian filmmaker has carved out an iconic status in the movie industry for his visual effects artistry, incredible research, and extraordinary storytelling – and while The Terminator might be the first sci-fi title that comes to mind, it actually wasn’t his debut.
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We’re not adding Avatar: Fire & Ash to the list just yet — we need to stew on it before we can firmly slot it into the rankings — but otherwise, here’s every James Cameron sci-fi movie ranked, worst to best.
6. The Abyss
The Abyss | Remastered 4K In Theaters | Official Trailer – YouTube
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Release date: August 9, 1989 | Cast: Ed Harris, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Michael Biehn | Rotten Tomatoes: 76% on the Tomatometer
The deep sea is scary enough, but you know what makes it even scarier? Finding aliens down there. Unfortunately for Ed Harris and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, — starring as estranged husband and wife, Bud and Lindsey — their passion for diving takes them on a horrifyingly claustrophobic adventure to the depths of the ocean.
When a nuclear submarine disappears, the crew of a civilian oil rig goes on a search and rescue mission with jaw-dropping consequences. For James Cameron, who’d already risen to fame with The Terminator and Aliens, it was a watery shift that no one saw coming. And, unfortunately, it wasn’t a massive hit at the time (though it still won an Oscar for best visual effects).
More recently, though, it’s become a well-loved sci-fi pick, with a revised (and extended to a hefty 171 minutes) version that viewers are even more eager to dive right into and experience the unexpected.
Cameron tells a fantastically tense sci-fi tale, gripping audiences with the heart-wrenching relationship of Bud and Lindsey, and the romantic tension that builds throughout is a welcome reprieve from the intense water-dwelling extraterrestrials. Nothing like a fear for human life to put your love into perspective, right?
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5. Avatar: The Way of Water
Avatar: The Way of Water | Official Trailer – YouTube
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Release date: December 16, 2022 | Cast: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang | Rotten Tomatoes: 76% on the Tomatometer
13 years after Avatar stormed onto the big screen, the sequel arrived. And it says a lot about Cameron’s abilities as a director that it felt like no time had passed at all. Jake Sully has fully integrated himself into his life as a Na’vi, still with Neytiri, and now with a family to look after. Unfortunately, they don’t get their ‘happily ever after’ as humanity returns to Pandora. So instead, they get to star in another exhilarating action movie.
Once again, Cameron intertwines the pillars of his directorial work: outstanding visuals, epic storytelling, and an unwavering ability to create tension. VFX is the cornerstone of a movie like Avatar, transforming actors into their Na’vi form and formulating their lives in a whole new world. Cameron’s always had bigger plans for Avatar, though, telling Variety: “We were working on three scripts and then it turned into four.”
In fact, Avatar: Fire and Ash is the second half of the original The Way of Water script. With plans for another sequel, that kind of freedom and ability to plan ahead is something most directors can only dream of. For Cameron, it’s a well-deserved reality.
4. The Terminator
THE TERMINATOR (1984) | Official Trailer | MGM – YouTube
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Release date: October 26, 1984 | Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Michael Biehn, Linda Hamilton | Rotten Tomatoes: 90% on the Tomatometer
We’ve been talking about The Terminator for years. I even ranked The Terminator movies back in 2022 – and it’s still an absolute pleasure to discuss. And yet, it’s in fourth place on this list, a testament to just how strong Cameron’s sci-fi chops are.
Arnold Schwarzenegger stars as The Terminator, a time-travelling cyborg on a mission to take out one Sarah Connor. Why? Well, because one day she’s destined to become the mother of humankind’s salvation, and as far as The Terminator is concerned, that can’t happen.
Not only is The Terminator a bona fide sci-fi classic, but it’s the first major work of Cameron’s career, and its success was the spark to sent him on the path to directorial superstardom. Up until this point, Cameron had been mainly working in visual effects, and he poured everything he’d learned up to this point into The Terminator, bringing the entire story to life in a way that’s still incredible to watch to this day.
3. Avatar
Avatar | Official Trailer (HD) | 20th Century FOX – YouTube
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Release date: December 18, 2009 | Cast: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldaña, Sigourney Weaver, Michelle Rodriguez | Rotten Tomatoes: 81% on the Tomatometer
Cinematically breathtaking, deeply immersive, and the highest-grossing movie of all time, Avatar is a piece of cinematic history. It feels almost criminal to place it third, but perhaps Cameron shouldn’t be so good at directing sci-fi movies. Avatar is the first movie I saw in 3D in the cinema, and I distinctly remember feeling like if I just reached out, I could touch the falling leaves of Pandora.
Avatar sees Jake Sully, a paraplegic veteran, on a mission to the moon Pandora, in an entirely new form, adopting that of the Na’vi people. But while he’s there to gather a rare resource, he falls in love and vows to protect Pandora and the Na’vi as his own.
The groundbreaking use of 3D technology was one of the main reasons Avatar was such and is still such a huge success, but beyond that, it just tells such a compelling and relatable tale.
2. Terminator 2: Judgment Day
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) Trailer #1 | Movieclips Classic Trailers – YouTube
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Release date: July 3, 1991 | Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Robert Patrick | Rotten Tomatoes: 91% on the Tomatometer
Terminator 2: Judgment Day holds the top spot amongst the best Terminator movies, and it’s also arguably one of the best sequels to any movie, ever. Acting as Cameron’s own conclusion to the Terminator franchise (disputes over rights saw his directorial ties severed after this), it’s a sequel that took everything about the first movie and made it even better.
In Terminator 2, Arnie returns as the T-800, but this time as a reprogrammed good cyborg protecting a young John Connor. That leaves a gap for a bad cyborg to take his place, and that’s where Robert Patrick’s T-1000 comes into play.
Action-packed and full of robotic terror, Terminator 2 is the T-800’s redemption arc perfectly translated onto the big screen with Cameron’s dedication to telling a perfectly paced story. And, by this point, Cameron has sci-fi thrills down to a tee, building on his work from the first Terminator movie. It’s not quite the best sci-fi movie he’s ever made, though; that title goes to…
1. Aliens
Aliens (1986) Trailer #1 | Movieclips Classic Trailers – YouTube
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Release date: July 18, 1986 | Cast: Sigourney Weaver, Michael Biehn, Carrie Henn, Bill Paxton | Rotten Tomatoes: 94% on the tomatometer
Stop your grinnin’ and drop your linen! You knew it was going to be Aliens.
Picking up a sequel when you didn’t direct the previous title is a hard task, but Cameron’s bold decision gave us a bigger and (arguably) better Alien movie than the original. In fact, between this and T2, Cameron might be the best sequel director out there.
For Aliens, the xenomorphs are back. We all knew it would happen, but none more so than Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), who returns after a deep freeze to find that big corporation Weyland-Yutani is very close to rattling their nest again.
And here comes Cameron’s absolute genius in the director’s chair, building on the sci-fi horror of the first with visually terrifying xenomorphs, suffocating tension, and world-building prowess that truly takes you away from reality. Ellen Ripley may have started as a character that Cameron didn’t have a say in, but he transformed her role into an Oscar nomination-worthy performance, cemented in a sci-fi world that you’d be primed to visit again and again.
Holiday Special 2025 – A Look Back at 2025 in Space! – YouTube
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On Episode 190 of This Week In Space, Rod Pyle and Tariq Malik look back at the past year in space — its ups, its downs, its all-arounds.
But there are a lot of other stories and we’ve done our best to stuff as many as we can into this virtual Christmas space stocking! Please join us for this year-end roundup!
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Download or subscribe to this show at: https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-space.
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Space news of the week
Model Falcon 9!
Finally, did you know you can launch your own SpaceX rocket? Model rocket maker Estes’ stunning scale model of a Falcon 9 rocket that you can pick up now. The launchable model is a detailed recreation of the Falcon 9 and retails for $149.99. You can save 10% by using the code IN-COLLECTSPACE at checkout, courtesy of our partners collectSPACE.com.
About This Week In Space
Join Rod Pyle and Tariq Malik from Space.com as they tackle those questions and more each week on Friday afternoons. You can subscribe today on your favorite podcatcher.
Host of This Week In Space on TWiT
Host of This Week In Space on TWiTRod Pyle
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Rod Pyle is an author, journalist, television producer and Editor-in-Chief of Ad Astra magazine. He has written 18 books on space history, exploration, and development, including Space 2.0, Innovation the NASA Way, Interplanetary Robots, Blueprint for a Battlestar, Amazing Stories of the Space Age, First On the Moon, and Destination Mars
In a previous life, Rod produced numerous documentaries and short films for The History Channel, Discovery Communications, and Disney. He also worked in visual effects on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and the Battlestar Galactica reboot, as well as various sci-fi TV pilots. His most recent TV credit was with the NatGeo documentary on Tom Wolfe’s iconic book The Right Stuff.
This Week In Space co-host
This Week In Space co-hostTariq Malik
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Responsible for Space.com’s editorial vision, Tariq Malik has been the Editor-in-Chief of Space.com since 2019 and has covered space news and science for 18 years. He joined the Space.com team in 2001, first as an intern and soon after as a full-time spaceflight reporter covering human spaceflight, exploration, astronomy and the night sky. He became Space.com’s managing editor in 2009. As on-air talent has presented space stories on CNN, Fox News, NPR and others.
Tariq is an Eagle Scout (yes, he earned the Space Exploration merit badge), a Space Camp veteran (4 times as a kid, once as an adult), and has taken the ultimate “vomit comet” ride while reporting on zero-gravity fires. Before joining Space.com, he served as a staff reporter for The Los Angeles Times covering city and education beats. He has journalism degrees from the University of Southern California and New York University.
If you’ve ever shopped for binoculars as a beginner, you’ll have probably noticed that they all look similar, they’re packed full of jargon about coatings and prisms, and the price tags range from “that’s cheaper than going out for dinner” to “I could buy a used car for that”. This is particularly apparent in the world of 10×42 binoculars — the Goldilocks size that’s just right for just about everything, from spotting birds in the garden to sweeping across the night sky.
So why should you go for a 10×42? In short, it’s the jack-of-all-trades of binocular specs; ideal if you want to look at a variety of general subjects without necessarily specializing in a particular niche. The 10x magnification gets you close enough to see detail without resulting in too much shake, and the 42mm objective lenses gather plenty of light without weighing you down. It’s no surprise that this size is the best seller across almost every brand.
But here’s the catch: not all 10x42s are created equal. The glass, coatings and materials can be the difference between “hey look, there’s a bird” to “wow, I can see every feather”. Celestron offers six models across four different ranges in this size — Outland X, Nature DX (plus an ED version), TrailSeeker (plus an ED version) and Regal ED. These range from budget-friendly to “treat yourself,” with each step up adding a little more sophistication (and a little more strain on your wallet).
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Meet the contenders
The budget model
The people’s favorite
The sweet spot
The middle child
The awkward overachiever
The one for serious birders
How the tech evolves as you spend more
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While all of Celestron’s 10×42’s are similar in size and weight, some are more comfortable than others.(Image credit: Kimberley Lane)
Three of the six models boast ED glass.(Image credit: Kimberley Lane)
They’re the ideal size to slip into a bag or a coat pocket, or carry them in the included carry cases.(Image credit: Kimberley Lane)
We’ve all heard the saying “you get what you pay for.” This is particularly true when it comes to optics. At first glance, all of these models wear the same 10×42 badge. But binoculars are like cakes: it’s the same flour and sugar, but you get different results based on the quality of the ingredients.
Coatings
The Outland X makes do with basic multi-coated lenses, which are fine for daytime use but lacking after dark. Nature DX upgrades this to fully multi-coated optics with phase-coated prisms, which sharpen the contrast and reduce glare. TrailSeeker and Regal ED both combine phase and dielectric prism coatings with fully coated lenses, delivering the clearest, brightest view of the lot.
When testing the sharpness, we looked at the same set of houses to determine where the image started to soften out towards the edges of the frame. (Image credit: Kimberley Lane)
Glass
ED (Extra-low Dispersion) glass keeps different wavelengths of light focused together, reducing the purple or green fringing that appears around bright edges. The Outland X series has no ED option, while the Nature DX and TrailSeeker offer both standard and ED models. The Regal is only sold as an ED version, and its flat-field technology also maintains edge-to-edge sharpness.
Build quality and materials
The Outland X and Nature DX models are built with polycarbonate bodies clad in rubber armor — durable enough, but can feel a little plasticky. The TrailSeeker and Regal series upgrade to a magnesium chassis and rubber armor, which feels tougher yet lighter in extended use. However, all six models are waterproof and nitrogen-purged to prevent fogging.
Results
6th place: Celestron Outland X
The Celestron Outland X is the most affordable of the six models. (Image credit: Kimberley Lane)
The Celestron Outland X series is designed for outdoor enthusiasts who want a rugged, durable pair of binoculars that won’t cost the earth. If you aren’t too bothered about having amazing detail, contrast or overall image quality, the Outland X will fit the bill if you absolutely cannot stretch your budget.
During our tests, they unsurprisingly performed the worst in most cases, but that’s to be expected in a budget pair of binoculars. If you were to look through them on their own, they appear to do the job at first glance, but when you compare them directly to the other 10×42 models, it becomes obvious where they fall short.
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We found them satisfactory for casual use, but they fell short compared to the others.(Image credit: Kimberley Lane)
The addition of a textured grip would have been improved their handling, but overall, they were fine.(Image credit: Kimberley Lane)
There was noticeable chromatic aberration around high-contrast subjects, and the overall picture was softer and duller than the rest of the lineup. The build quality feels solid yet lightweight, although it lacks some of the premium features you’ll find on the more expensive models. Still, it’s waterproof and nitrogen-purged to prevent fogging, which is important for an outdoor binocular. The focus wheel is fairly smooth, although the diopter is noticeably stiffer than the other models.
Overall, we’d recommend the Outland X series if you just want to get a closer look at subjects without spending too much money, and you aren’t bothered about having highly detailed views. We’re not sure we’d pay $119 for the 10×42, so it might be worth waiting for Black Friday to take advantage of a deal, or downsizing to the 8×25 or 10×25 if you don’t need to use them in low light.
Would we buy them? No.
Today’s best Celestron Outland X 10×42 deals
5th place: TrailSeeker
The TrailSeeker had lots of subtle improvements over the standard Nature DX, but the price was a dealbreaker. (Image credit: Kimberley Lane)
In the TrailSeeker, we see the introduction of phase and dielectric-coated prisms. The latter enables more light to be reflected off the prism, resulting in a brighter image than the Nature DX and Outland X, which only have phase coating. The combination of phase and dielectric maximizes light transmission, making this pair better suited for wildlife observation in low light and stargazing. The differences in brightness, sharper image quality and reduced glare compared to the Nature DX are small, but noticeable. The build has also been upgraded to lightweight and durable magnesium alloy.
When we tested them out at a nature reserve, we noticed a fair amount of chromatic aberration when observing ducks on a pond, which was completely eliminated once we switched to a pair with ED glass. There’s a bit of fringing around the moon, and we enjoyed using them for stargazing as they are comfortable to use for long periods.
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We found the TrailSeeker one of the more comfortable pairs to use.(Image credit: Kimberley Lane)
They’re lightweight with a good grip and comfortable eyecups — alongside excellent optics.(Image credit: Kimberley Lane)
Putting the TrailSeeker in fifth place does feel a bit harsh, because they are undoubtedly a fantastic pair of binoculars. Before we introduced the ED models into our group test, the TrailSeeker was initially our favorite. However, the addition of the Nature DX ED, in particular, has presented a better option for a lower price, so it’s hard to justify placing the TrailSeeker any higher.
Overall, the TrailSeeker performed very similarly to the Nature DX, and although they were slightly better in terms of sharpness, brightness and overall clarity, we didn’t notice enough of a difference to make the price jump worth it. At the end of it, it came down to value for money.
Would we buy them? No, but only because there are better options — not because there’s anything wrong with these ones.
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4th place: Celestron Nature DX
The Nature DX effortlessly combines performance with affordability. (Image credit: Kimberley Lane)
It’s easy to see why the Nature DX is a bestseller. They offer a great balance of decent performance and affordability, making them good for beginners and hobbyists who want to get their money’s worth without having to spend too much on exceptional optics.
We took them to our local nature reserve and struggled to make out finer details when observing waterfowl. There was also noticeable color fringing on birds and trees, both near and in the distance. For this reason, we wouldn’t recommend them for birdwatching, specifically, but they performed quite well for stargazing and general purpose viewing.
In many of our tests, the Nature DX actually performed very similarly to the more expensive TrailSeeker, with only a fraction of a difference in sharpness across the frame, chromatic aberration and overall brightness. For more casual users, these differences certainly won’t warrant spending the extra $100-$140 to upgrade to the TrailSeeker.
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The Nature DX is the lightest of the six models we tested.(Image credit: Kimberley Lane)
They’re great for beginner birders and casual stargazing.(Image credit: Kimberley Lane)
The Nature DX is the lightest of the six models, and the weight difference is particularly apparent when compared to the Regal. They’re perfectly suited to throwing in your bag on a hike or taking on camping trips where you’ll want to view a whole range of subjects, and we think they’re good value for money overall — but we would pay the extra to upgrade to the Nature DX ED.
Would we buy them? No, we’d pay the extra for the ED variant.
- Read our full reviews of the 8×42 and 12×56 variants
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3rd place: TrailSeeker ED
The TrailSeeker ED 10×42’s were brilliant, but we have trouble recommending them. (Image credit: Kimberley Lane)
This is where the fun starts. The TrailSeeker ED are bright, sharp and excellent in low light, and we have no complaints about them at all. So, why have we placed them third, you may ask? Well, the pricing makes them a bit redundant when the Nature DX ED and Regal ED are on the table. Although the TrailSeeker ED are slightly better than the Nature DX ED, we don’t think they’re worth the extra cost, so we’d recommend the Nature DX ED for beginners or anyone on a budget.
On the other end, the Regal ED has everything the TrailSeeker ED has, plus flat-field technology to improve edge-to-edge sharpness, but the TrailSeeker ED are more expensive, so it’s a no-brainer there as well.
The TrailSeeker ED is fantastic, but the problem is that the price prevents our being able to recommend them, as there’s always a more attractive option.
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There is a big difference between the TrailSeeker and TrailSeeker ED when it comes to long-distance clarity.(Image credit: Kimberley Lane)
They boast a solid, premium build.(Image credit: Kimberley Lane)
During our group test at the nature reserve, we noticed the TrailSeeker ED was definitely brighter, sharper and clearer than the Nature ED, but again, not by the kind of margin that might warrant such a huge price jump. The trees in the distance had more definition, so the TrailSeeker ED would be better for long-distance viewing, specifically, in addition to low-light observation. The TrailSeeker ED was also much more detailed than the standard TrailSeeker when we were looking at leaves on a pond. They’re fantastic for both birdwatching and stargazing, but we just wish they were priced better.
The TrailSeeker ED was one of two pairs where we felt truly immersed in the scene we were observing. With the other four pairs, it felt obvious that we were looking through binoculars.
Would we buy them? Currently, no. If they were cheaper, yes.
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2nd place: Nature DX ED
The Nature DX ED are a triumph for the price. (Image credit: Kimberley Lane)
Financially, the Nature DX ED seems to make the most sense out of Celestron’s lineup. While they don’t quite have the optical power of the Regal ED, the Nature DX ED still excels in comparison to the Nature DX and TrailSeeker, and packs a lot of punch for the price.
We noticed a big reduction in chromatic aberration when comparing them against the normal Nature DX and TrailSeeker models, both for close-up viewing and objects in the distance. This was particularly apparent when observing birds in flight, and when peering at a bright moon, where we barely noticed any color fringing whatsoever.
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We had a hard time differentiating the Nature DX ED from the TrailSeeker ED.(Image credit: Kimberley Lane)
The Nature DX ED fit in the hand perfectly.(Image credit: Kimberley Lane)
For birdwatching, there wasn’t a huge amount of difference between the Nature DX ED and the TrailSeeker ED, despite the latter having dielectric coatings. While the TrailSeeker ED had the edge overall, the Nature DX ED give more bang for your buck and are fantastic overall.
Despite their polycarbonate build, we think they’re an excellent choice that combines substance with affordability.
Would we buy them? Yes.
Today’s best Celestron Nature DX ED 10×42 deals
Winner: Regal ED
The Regal ED are the most premium of the models we tested. (Image credit: Kimberley Lane)
Regal by name, regal by nature. These powerful 10x42s seem to tick all the boxes, and after spending some time with them, we are impressed — particularly after we spent a couple of nights stargazing with them in the Bannau Brycheiniog National Park in Wales, enjoying sights of Andromeda, the Summer Triangle and the Coathanger asterism.
The feature that sets them apart from the other models, which could arguably make it a little unfair to compare them, is their flat-field technology. This eliminates the natural curvature that typically occurs with standard convex lenses, to ensure edge-to-edge sharpness across the entire field of view. As you can see from the graphic further up the page, we found these to be the sharpest binoculars by far.
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They’re the heaviest of the models we tested, although we were still able to use them comfortably for long periods.(Image credit: Kimberley Lane)
The flat-field technology ensures razor sharp views across the entire frame.(Image credit: Kimberley Lane)
They also come with ED objective lenses as standard, whereas the other models don’t. They offer the same prism and lens coatings as the TrailSeeker models, along with the same field of view and body materials.
The views were tack-sharp throughout, with bright, contrasty views in any light. The moon looked perfect with no color fringing, and we could easily follow a Kingfisher dancing above a pond with no issues at all. Like the TrailSeeker ED, we felt truly immersed in the scene as opposed to feeling like we were looking through binoculars.
If we’re being picky, their weight could potentially deter users who are looking for a more lightweight and compact pair of binoculars. Not only is the Regal the heaviest of the lot, but the eyecups are the biggest, and we found them to be bigger than our eye sockets (yet another unrealistic beauty standard!). This meant we couldn’t, for lack of a better term, get our face in them properly without being a little uncomfortable.
This shouldn’t deter you, as this is just a personal preference, but it’s small details like this that can make a big difference in finding the right pair of binoculars for you.
Would we buy them? If we were serious about birding, yes.
Today’s best Celestron Regal ED 10×42 deals
SCIENCE
‘A potential treasure trove’: World Health Organization to explore benefits of traditional medicines | Global health
From herbalists in Africa gathering plants to use as poultices to acupuncturists in China using needles to cure migraines, or Indian yogis practising meditation, traditional remedies have increasingly being shown to work, and deserve more attention and research, according to a World Health Organization official.
A historical lack of evidence, which has seen traditional practices dismissed by many, could change with more investment and the use of modern technology, according to Dr Shyama Kuruvilla, who leads the WHO Global Traditional Medicine Centre.
Dr Shyama Kuruvilla, Director of the WHO Global Traditional Medicine Centre. Photograph: Lindsay Mackenzie/WHO
Earlier this year, countries agreed the WHO should adopt a new global traditional medicines strategy for the next decade that “seeks to harness the potential contribution of TCIM [traditional, complementary and integrative medicine] to health and wellbeing based on evidence”.
It includes plans to establish a robust evidence base for traditional medicine practices, develop regulation of treatments and practitioners and, where appropriate, integrate the practices into mainstream biomedical healthcare.
“It’s super-exciting,” says Kuruvilla. “I’m not saying we know what works and what doesn’t work at scale – but I think there’s this opportunity [to find out] right now.”
Traditional medicine, defined as systems for health and wellbeing that predate “biomedicine”, comes in many guises ranging from herbal tea to India’s Ayurvedic medical system.
Many of these centuries-old practices have “huge potential”, says Kuruvilla, and can now be explored in new ways by technologies including artificial intelligence, genomics and brain scans.
Kuruvilla says Thailand is a good example of a country embracing traditional medicine, with researchers observing and documenting traditional practice, and performing randomised trials to get herbal treatments on to the country’s essential medicines list. In May, Thailand’s health ministry recommended doctors switch from some biomedicines to traditional remedies for certain conditions including muscle pain and constipation.
Kratom (Mitragyna speciosa) on sale in Bangkok, Thailand. The plant has been used in traditional medicine for centuries and was legalised in 2021. Photograph: Narong Sangnak/EPA
There have been some concerns that the WHO strategy could create a backdoor for unscientific systems such as homeopathy to enter the mainstream but Kuruvilla points out that homeopathy does not fit the WHO’s definition of traditional medicine – it was only created in the late 18th century – and that there is not strong enough evidence for the practice.
But, she says: “With all of these – with biomedicine, homeopathy, traditional medicine – if the evidence changes, I think it’s our responsibility to be open to that.”
In some countries homeopathy is used as a complementary medicine “and that’s up to the countries”, Kuruvilla says. “We have to, as WHO, just stick to the evidence.
“So I think that’s our bottom line: is this supported by robust reliable evidence, especially on safety and efficacy? And if it’s not, WHO is not supporting it, whether it is biomedicine or traditional medicine.”
Not engaging wasn’t an option, because that would mean everything goes on without any safeguardsDr Shyama Kuruvilla
WHO surveys suggest that in most countries, the majority of traditional, complementary and integrative medicine services are not part of the formal health system and are paid for by patients. They are less likely to be subject to official quality checks but are hugely popular.
“Not engaging wasn’t an option, because that would mean everything goes on without any safeguards,” Kuruvilla says, pointing to a burgeoning trillion-dollar wellness industry ranging from yoga studios to “nutraceuticals”.
The opening ceremony of the second WHO global summit on traditional medicine in New Delhi, India, on 17 December. Photograph: CBAS Films/WHO
New methods let scientists study traditional medicine “in a way that wasn’t possible before”, Kuruvilla says. Genomics might prompt new understanding of the properties of a plant, while modern scanning equipment can pick up changes in the brains of people meditating.
“Meditation was all this ‘woo-woo stuff’ but now, seeing all these advances in neuroscience and showing changes in brain waves from functional magnetic resonance imaging, which we couldn’t do before – actually being able to trace the pathways that lead to changes in health measurements – I think this is really, really exciting,” she says.
A new WHO strategic technical advisory group for traditional medicine was launched this week at a global summit in India. “This is a pivotal moment for traditional medicine. It embodies cultural heritage and national health identities, and increasingly, it constitutes a vital component of primary health care strategies,” Dr Yukiko Nakatani, WHO’s assistant director-general for health system, access and data, told the summit.
The idea, Kuruvilla suggests, is to “build a bridge” between traditional medicine and biomedicine. It is important to “find commonalities”, she says. “Showing that the science can be robust is really, really important, and especially on the patient safety aspect.”
Traditional medicine has the potential to be a “treasure trove”, Kuruvilla says. The vast numbers of people working in the field – including university-educated professionals accredited to work in clinics in China and India – could ease global workforce shortages and make a “huge contribution” to universal health coverage, she says.
Staff prepare traditional herbal medicine at a hospital in Tongren, China. Photograph: CFOTO/Future Publishing/Getty Images
In the context of aid cuts forcing countries to rethink health provision, traditional medicine could be “a way for countries also to be more self-reliant and then share those resources with each other”.
The risk of failing to invest, she says, is leaving people unable to access their preferred type of healthcare in a safe way and “the world not being able to use our shared heritage here in a way that allows us to find new holistic solutions for health and wellbeing of people and planet”.
In the late 1970s, legendary physicist John Wheeler proposed a radical question: Exactly when does the universe notice that we’re paying attention to a quantum experiment? And does it really matter? The answer goes against everything we thought we knew.
Wheeler’s thought experiment, which eventually became a real experiment, involved the famous double-slit experiment. Let’s say you have a source of light and a screen with two thin, vertical slits. When you shine the light through the slits, the light acts like a wave. It interferes with itself, causing a ripple-like pattern on a far wall, with strips of brightness alternating with darkness. This is exactly how waves work, and if you ever find yourself in a harbor with two narrow openings, you’ll see the waves washing up onshore with a similar pattern.
Now, let’s say you make the light really weak — so weak that, eventually, only one photon at a time goes through the double slit. Amazingly, even though each individual photon acts like a particle — it hits the far wall in one specific spot — after enough photons arrive, the same interference pattern emerges. The usual conclusion is that the wave nature of a single photon interferes with itself to create the pattern.
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Now, let’s add one more layer. Let’s say you introduce a detector to the slits, to figure out which slit the photon actually passed through on its way through the screen. When you do this, the wave nature of the photon goes away. You get to see which slit the photon passed through — but it only ever acts like a particle, and you never get an interference pattern on the far wall.
When we design a quantum experiment, we must choose to investigate either the wave nature or the particle nature of photons — but we can’t do both. OK, it’s weird. But so far, it’s the standard sort of quantum weirdness.
Wheeler upped the ante. He asked what would happen if you were to introduce a delay. What if you were to insert a detector at the slits after the photon had already passed through?
Wheeler proposed a helpful analogy. Imagine a distant light source, like a quasar, that sends light traveling for billions of light-years. Some of that light heads right for us, while some beams follow a curved path through a gravitational lens, like a massive cluster. Both beams arrive on Earth at the same time, and we can set up an experiment to interfere with those beams. In that experiment, we can choose to study either the wave nature or the particle nature of light.
Wheeler guessed the answer. He was right, and his correctness was later borne out by experiments. Even when we make a delayed choice, the photons somehow keep track of that and alter whether they’re going to make an interference pattern.
How does this work? We’re making our choice at the final leg of the light’s journey. How did the photons “know” what choice we were going to make ahead of time? It seems as if our choice in the future went back in time to alter how the photons behaved in the past.
An updated version of the experiment, known as the “delayed choice quantum eraser,” makes this even crazier. In this experiment, the photons pass through the slits. Then, the experiment decides whether to monitor the slits. Well after the photons have struck the screen, the experimenter decides to read the information. If the experimenter reads the information about which slit the photon passed through, there will never be an interference pattern. If the experiment throws away the information, an interference pattern emerges.
Remember, all of this is after the photon has already hit the screen.
Wheeler taught us how to think about this. He argued that it doesn’t make sense to talk about photons “in flight.” We only have measurements and observations — the final results of our experiments. The order of the events and what happened during the experiment itself don’t matter. Photons aren’t really in flight in the way we think of it, and the wave-particle duality of photons doesn’t make sense in the way we usually think about things.
What we get, whether particles or waves, is what we get. And it’s only once we make that measurement that nature reveals what aspect of reality to show us.