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The Ukrainian SBU launched a drone strike on Russia’s Saki Air Base in Crimea on Friday. The attack, the latest in a string of strikes against Russian aviation and logistic assets on the peninsula, is part of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s latest campaign to inflict so much pain on Russia that Vladimir Putin moves to end the war.

SBU claimed to have destroyed several Russian tactical combat jets today as well as on Wednesday. Saki is home to the Russian Navy’s 43rd Independent Naval Attack Aviation Regiment , which flies mostly Su-30SM Flankers . It has been a frequent target of Ukrainian strikes and was hit by a devastating attack in the early days of the war.

“At the ‘Saki’ airfield, seven hangars storing aviation equipment were hit, in which Su-30SM, Su-30, and Su-24 fighter jets and frontline bombers were located,” SBU added. “According to preliminary information, at least seven aircraft were destroyed or damaged.”

SBU told us it had no visual evidence from either attack to back their claim, but we reached out to Vantor to see if they had any satellite imagery of the base. Vantor provided us a picture that showed damage to four hardened aircraft shelters that was taken this morning. Some of shelters have clear damage to their structures, others literally have their doors blown off and laying on the taxiway in front of them. From the overhead angle of the image, it is impossible to determine if aircraft were in those shelters at the time, and if they were, what, if any damage, was inflicted. In addition, we can’t tell when this happened from just one picture, although imagery we reviewed from Planet Labs dating to June 27th doesn’t appear to show the same damage to the shelters.

It is very possible that any aircraft in those shelters could have been damaged by fire, as the SBU claimed, or by shrapnel, but we just don’t know. Regardless, the shelters remain generally intact. We have written frequently about Russia’s efforts to protect its aircraft this way, including on Crimea .

This image shows damage to two hardened aircraft shelters at Saki Air Base in the wake of two Ukrainian drone attacks this week. (Satellite image ©2026 Vantor.)

Regardless, these attacks come after months of Ukrainian strikes on bridges connecting the peninsula with the mainland and on it’s fuel infrastructure. The situation has gotten so bad on Crimea that the officials there have tried to initiate gasoline rationing, making life miserable at the height of the traditional summer vacation season there.

The fuel crisis in Russia escalates into a conflict between Crimean Russians and Russians from the nearby Krasnodar region.

Residents of Krasnodar Krai are complaining that “non-Russians” from Crimea have occupied their gas stations.

In response, locals have started refusing… pic.twitter.com/F7uo75wvmx

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) June 30, 2026

Amid the ongoing Ukrainian pressure campaign, a Russian military officer said he recently took part in an exercise to see what it would take to fend off Ukrainian attacks on Crimea.

“I participated in the operational command-staff military game ‘Crimean Alert,’” Russian reserve colonel and military expert Viktor Murakhovsky claimed on Telegram . “The game was dedicated to the landing of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in Crimea and our measures to repel it. The staffs were organized according to the scenario from officers (in reserve and retired) of our armed forces.”

“The ‘Blue’ side acted unconventionally, widely using the latest means of detection and destruction,” he added. “The ‘Red’ side was forced to act ‘on the defensive.’ Overall, the exercises went smoothly and at a high level thanks to the organizers.”

Clearly, Ukraine does not possess much of a Navy, let alone landing craft to carry out a Normandy-style invasion. However, that is not the scenario played out in this wargame, according to an analysis by the award-winning The Insider news outlet .

“The scenario clearly simulates an amphibious or maritime operation: numerous blue arrows and routes are drawn across the Black Sea, extending from the direction of Odesa and the northwestern Black Sea toward Crimea,” the publication noted. “Red defensive positions are marked on the map within Crimea, particularly around Sevastopol, in northern Crimea, and in the eastern part of the peninsula.”

The map “shows the Kerch and Kerch Strait area on the right—also densely marked with red icons—indicating that the game scenario accounted for the eastern flank in addition to western Crimea and Sevastopol,” The Insider proffered. “Judging by Murakhovsky’s post, the scenario likely envisioned not a classic World War II-style amphibious landing—with hundreds of ships approaching the shore—but rather a modern operation involving the mass use of drones, long-range precision-guided weapons, reconnaissance systems, and possibly small, high-speed boats.”

1/ QUICK TAKE: Russian authorities are wargaming a Ukrainian landing in Crimea: Recently, a "Crimean Reveille" operational command-and-staff military exercise took place that focused on a hypothetical amphibious landing by the Ukrainian military in Crimea. https://t.co/p0CzROgL8E pic.twitter.com/7iMXPmUOmf

— Samuel Bendett (@sambendett) July 3, 2026

As we have frequently reported , Ukraine has for years been using its air and sea drones to attack Russian air defenses and radars inland, its seaports and largely driven the Black Sea Fleet out of Crimea through the use of its innovative sea drone campaign.

Ukraine, as we reported in the past, has already carried out several incursions on the peninsula. In October 2023, the Ukrainian Defense Intelligence Directorate (GUR) sent a small raiding party into a point north of Tarkhankut Bay. It was carried out by troops traversing the Black Sea on Sea-Doo GTX 300 personal watercraft. They were loaded down by grenade launchers, machine guns, man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS) and other equipment needed to assault Russian positions. You can read more about that raid in our interview with the unit commander here .

Ukrainian forces have already carried out several raids on Crimea. (GUR screencap) GUR screencap

Those attacks did not lead to a sustained presence, but they were not intended to. They were meant as a morale-boosting reminder to Moscow that Crimea would never be completely out of reach.

Whether Ukraine can marshal enough of its asymmetric assets and troops to really carry out any sort of a wide-scale amphibious landing on Crimea remains questionable bordering on impossible. One thing, however, is not. Ukraine is inflicting significant amounts of pain on Russian forces and assets on the peninsula.

Contact the author: howard@twz.com

The post Hardened Aircraft Shelters At Russian Air Base In Crimea Damaged From Ukrainian Drone Strikes appeared first on TWZ .

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TL;DR

Google brought Collections to the Play Store a couple years back.

So far, the Play Store widgets all feature multiple Collections that are shown at once.

Google is now working on single-Collection widgets, to highlight just your favorites.

Two years ago, the Google Play Store introduced Collections , a method for making it easier to access thematically similar apps by grouping them according to topics like Shop, Listen, Food, and more. It didn’t take long after that for Google to introduce some new Collections widgets , giving us quick access to these categories straight from the home screen. Now we’ve spotted Google working on the next evolution of the Play Store’s widgets, splitting Collections out into multiple, separate widgets.

You’re reading an Authority Insights story. Authority Insights brings you all the latest exclusive reports, app teardowns, leaks, and in-depth tech coverage from the Android Authority team that you won’t find anywhere else.

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NASA's AI medical tool works where Earth-based doctors simply cannot reach

Deep space has no signal — so NASA built its own offline doctor

RamaLama runs AI models the same way containers run software — predictably

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) currently rely heavily on Earth-based doctors whenever medical issues emerge hundreds of kilometres overhead.

That arrangement works reasonably well in low Earth orbit, where communication delays remain short enough for near real-time consultation sessions.

It becomes far less practical once crews travel beyond Earth orbit, where signals can take minutes rather than seconds to arrive.

An AI doctor built to work without an internet connection

Researchers at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston are now testing a clinical decision support system called Crew Medical Officer Digital Assistant, or CMO-DA.

The system is designed to help astronauts diagnose and treat medical conditions during deep space missions, where real-time communication with Earth-based doctors could be limited or entirely impossible.

Powering it is RamaLama, a Red Hat-backed open source tool built to simplify how developers run and serve AI models across diverse hardware environments.

According to Red Hat , RamaLama treats AI models like container images, running them in isolated, security-first environments using Open Container Initiative-compliant containers that are portable and predictable across hardware.

This approach allows the CMO-DA to perform what the team calls multimodal inference — processing both large language models for complex medical reasoning and Vision Language Models for image-based symptom analysis.

The system can therefore evaluate both written symptom descriptions and visual data without requiring any connection to a terrestrial cloud server.

That offline capability is not a convenience feature but a mission-critical requirement, since deep space communication delays make cloud dependency genuinely dangerous for crew health outcomes.

Testing is currently running on HPE hardware — specifically the terrestrial twin of the Spaceborne Computer already aboard the ISS — giving researchers a reliable Earth-based replica of the actual deployment environment.

By using open-source tools throughout, NASA researchers have built a system that is reproducible and auditable, which the team describes as essential for human safety in mission-critical environments.

From Earth testing to the ISS and beyond

Once the terrestrial testing phase is complete, the CMO-DA will be demonstrated to NASA leadership for evaluation of further deployment aboard the International Space Station.

The next iteration of the system will integrate Red Hat Enterprise Linux AI, known as RHEL AI.

This is to provide a stable, hardened foundation for scaling and managing containerized AI applications in remote and extreme environments.

RamaLama itself was built with a stated goal of making AI "boring" — meaning reliable, predictable, and unglamorous in the best possible sense for mission-critical applications.

The same architecture being tested for astronaut health could eventually serve as a blueprint for delivering medical support in the most remote areas on Earth.

Whether the CMO-DA eventually evolves into something resembling Star Trek's handheld Tricorder remains unknown.

What is known is that an open source AI tool is already diagnosing symptoms aboard a replica of hardware currently orbiting Earth.

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Joshua Vides has unveiled an exceptionally cool exhibition in Los Angeles.

The cars on display have been painted to mimic 2D comic book sketches.

The display will be at the Petersen Automotive Museum until next July.

Despite what you might be thinking, these aren’t sketches or detailed renderings pulled from some automotive comic book. They’re photos of a large art display at the Petersen Automotive Museum, where several classic cars have been painted to look as though they leapt straight off a comic book page.

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Read: Lexus Let An Artist Loose On The IS, And It Looks Like It Escaped A Comic Book

The man behind the display is artist Joshua Vides, and his exhibition, called Flat Out , runs at the most famous automotive museum in Los Angeles until July of next year. It looks fairly bewildering in photos, and we suspect it’s even more striking in person. The cars aren’t the only things painted to resemble comic book sketches. The entire mock garage housing them got the same treatment.

Petersen Automotive Museum

The lineup includes old Mercedes , Porsche, and Ferrari models, each one hand-painted white first and then finished with intricate black accents that give them a flat, eye-catching 2D look.

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Classics Meet Comic Book Style

The body panels aren’t the only surfaces reworked here. Every other part of the exterior got the same handling, from the bumpers and lights to the grilles and air intakes. The Ferrari 308 GTS looks especially cool with flowing black lines extending across the bodywork. Clearly, the paint wouldn’t be very practical for a road-driven car, but as a museum piece, it looks wonderful.

Petersen Automotive Museum

“I’ve had the opportunity to paint numerous vehicles and create galleries before, but to bring ‘Reality to Idea’ to life in a gallery at the Petersen is a dream come true,” Vides said while speaking with Hemmings . “Every vehicle provides a unique canvas, as do the spaces they are set in. Doing this at the Petersen was such an honor, and I am excited for the public to experience this exhibition.”

Petersen Automotive Museum

Vides has previously worked with the NBA, Formula 1, BMW, and Fendi, calling his artistic style ‘Reality to Idea,’ aiming to take completed designs “back to the original sketch.” Access to the collection of five cars and the garage where they are on display is included with any standard admission ticket to the museum.

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Petersen Automotive Museum

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Oscar-winning filmmaker Christopher Nolan has dedicated his craft to not only creating singular worlds and stories on screen, but doing so in a way that pushes beyond the limitations of what’s being done in film. Befitting of Homer ’s enduring epic, The Odyssey , Nolan set out to once again navigate uncharted territory, filming entirely in IMAX and developing innovative ways to adapt the format to fit even the most intimate scenes. Talking with Collider’s Steven Weintraub , Academy Award winner Anne Hathaway and Spider-Man icon Tom Holland discuss the ambitious set and the “truly ingenious” tech Nolan employed to pull it all off.

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If Chase's Pay Yourself Back hasn't been on your radar in a while, it may be worth brushing up on it.

Not only does this potentially lucrative option expand to a broad list of Chase cards , but some redemption rates are eye-catching as well.

Chase offers its Pay Yourself Back benefit on some cobranded credit cards, including Southwest Airlines cards , United Airlines cards , the Aeroplan® Credit Card (see rates and fees ) and the Marriott Bonvoy Bold® Credit Card (see rates and fees ).

Many of these current offers are valid now through Sept. 30.

Here's everything you need to know about using Chase Pay Yourself Back.

What is Chase Pay Yourself Back?

Pay Yourself Back is a unique redemption option within Chase's Ultimate Rewards program, offering cardmembers an alternative to redeeming points for travel.

The categories have evolved over time, and it's worth checking them each quarter to see if they're a good use of your rewards.

JLCO-JULIA AMARAL/GETTY IMAGES In short, the Pay Yourself Back option allows many Chase cardholders to redeem rewards at a value similar to what they would pay when booking travel. This won't typically yield the same maximum value for your Ultimate Rewards points as strategic use of transfer partners can, but it can get pretty close.

And, it could be a good choice if you're looking for a simple redemption or have a pile of points that you cannot immediately use.

Some Chase-cobranded airline cards (and a Marriott card) are also eligible for Pay Yourself Back. The rate at which you can redeem for some categories with these cards' rewards is over the average return you'll likely get when using your rewards to book travel.

Related: The best time to apply for Chase credit cards based on offer history

What purchases are eligible for Pay Yourself Back?

Here are the current categories eligible for Pay Yourself Back:

Card Redemption value Current end date

Chase Sapphire Reserve® (see rates and fees)

J.P. Morgan Reserve Card

Qualifying charities: 1.5 cents per point

Cardholder annual fee: 1.25 cents per point

Gas stations and public transit: 1.2 cents per point Sept. 30

Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card (see rates and fees) Qualifying charities: 1.25 cents per point

Pet supply stores, veterinary services and cardholder annual fee: 1.1 cents per point

Public transit: 1.05 cents per point Sept. 30

Chase Freedom Flex® (see rates and fees)

Chase Freedom Unlimited® (see rates and fees)

Chase Freedom

Chase Sapphire Reserve for Business℠ (see rates and fees)

Qualifying charities: 1.25 cents per point Sept. 30

Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card (see rates and fees)

Qualifying charities: 1.25 cents per point

Shipping, internet, cable and phone services: 1.1 cents per point Sept. 30

Ink Business Cash® Credit Card (see rates and fees)

Ink Business Premier® Credit Card (see rates and fees)

Ink Business Unlimited® Credit Card (see rates and fees)

Qualifying charities: 1.25 cents per point Sept. 30

Aeroplan Credit Card Travel purchases (up to 200,000 points or $2,500 annually) and cardholder annual fee (only purchases made at select merchants within 90 days before the redemption request date are eligible): 1.25 cents per point

Dining at restaurants, gas stations, grocery stores (excluding Target, Walmart and wholesale clubs): 0.8 cents per point

Promotional categories (when available): 0.8 cents per point These are persistent categories for 2026

United Airlines personal and business credit cards Cardholder annual fee: 1.35 to 1.5 cents per mile (based on which card you have)

United airfare purchases made directly with the airline of at least $50: 1 cent per mile Ongoing perk

Southwest Airlines personal and business credit cards Cardholder annual fee within 90 days of the transaction date Ongoing perk

Marriott Bonvoy Bold Credit Card Travel purchases made directly with airlines or Marriott Bonvoy hotels (up to $750 total per year) Ongoing perk

Disney credit cards Purchases made at select U.S. Disney locations in Disney Parks and Resorts, Disney store and outlet locations in the U.S., DisneyStore.com, DisneyPlus.com, Hulu.com and Stream.ESPN.com in the past 90 days: 1 Disney Rewards Dollar per dollar

Those with a Disney® Inspire Visa® Card (see rates and fees) or a Disney® Premier Visa® Card (see rates and fees) can redeem Disney Rewards Dollars toward airline purchases in the past 90 days with any airline at the rate of 1 Disney Rewards Dollar per dollar Ongoing perk

The information for the J.P. Morgan Reserve and Chase Freedom has been collected independently by The Points Guy. The card details on this page have not been reviewed or provided by the card issuer.

The list of charities for Pay Yourself Back includes:

Alzheimer's Association

American Heart Association

American Red Cross

Equal Justice Initiative

Feeding America

GLSEN

Habitat for Humanity

International Medical Corps

International Rescue Committee

Leadership Conference Education Fund

Make-A-Wish America

NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund

National Urban League

Out and Equal Workplace Advocates

SAGE

Thurgood Marshall College Fund

United Negro College Fund

UNICEF USA

United Way

World Central Kitchen

Let's say you wanted to redeem 10,000 points on your Chase Sapphire Reserve. For most purchases, you'll get a $100 statement credit when redeeming 10,000 points.

But for those same 10,000 points, you'll get a credit of $150 when you redeem them for an eligible charity donation .

Related: How much are Chase Ultimate Rewards points worth?

Requesting a credit

Requesting a credit through Chase's Pay Yourself Back program is relatively straightforward. Log in to your eligible Chase account via the mobile app or desktop and select the "Pay Yourself Back" option in the redemption menu.

Next, you'll see a list of eligible purchases for which you can redeem points. Points can be redeemed for purchases dating back 90 days. It typically indicates whether more value is available.

CHASE You can offset the full purchase amount, assuming you have enough points to cover it.

From there, you can confirm the redemption value and amount of points required and then choose to complete the transaction. Your statement credit should post within three business days.

Related: How to use Shop Through Chase to earn more points

Statement credit options on other purchases

Chase has long offered the option to redeem points for a statement credit. To do this, log into your Ultimate Rewards account, hit the drop-down menu and select "Cash Back."

You'll be given an option to enter the amount you'd like to redeem and where you'd like your rewards deposited. All cash-back redemptions are fixed at 1 cent per point, which is a little less than half of TPG's July 2026 valuation of Ultimate Rewards at 2.05 cents per point.

That redemption value is also lower than many of the above Pay Yourself Back options.

CHASE Even so, Chase's traditional cash-back option is more generous than what you can expect from some other issuers.

Related: If I cash out my points and miles, do I have to claim it on my taxes?

Bottom line

Chase's Pay Yourself Back feature provides valuable flexibility for many cardholders.

Ultimately, whether you should redeem your balance in this way depends on how you plan to use your points, how many you currently have and whether or not you'd benefit significantly from the statement credits.

If the categories for the third quarter of 2026 don't work out for you, be sure to check back in for the fourth quarter to see if you should use this benefit then.

Related: Supercharge your Chase Ultimate Rewards balance with these top 5 cards

Editorial disclaimer: Opinions expressed here are the author’s alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, airline or hotel chain, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities.

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The United States has withdrawn most of the forces it deployed for a recent operation against Islamic State militants in Nigeria and is now providing intelligence support at Abuja’s request, the head of U.S. Africa Command said.

In May, U.S. and Nigerian forces conducted military operations in northeastern Nigeria that killed Abu-Bilal al-Minuki, the second-in-command of ISIS globally.

That followed a U.S. strike on Christmas Day against the militants ordered by President Donald Trump, who said they had been targeting Christians in the African country.

Addressing a conference of African defense chiefs in Angola on Thursday, AFRICOM Commander Gen. Dagvin Anderson described May’s joint U.S.-Nigerian as a model for future security cooperation in Africa.

“We have withdrawn much of our forces that were just there for that operation, but are continuing the partnership that Nigeria has asked for to help continue with the intelligence sharing,” Anderson told journalists during a U.S. State Department-hosted briefing after the conference.

Anderson said the operation, in Nigeria’s Lake Chad Basin region, demonstrated Washington’s approach of providing specialized capabilities while allowing African partners to lead security operations.

He said cooperation with Nigeria had helped significantly degrade Islamic State’s leadership, adding that the impact had extended beyond West Africa because of the militant group’s international network.

The operation disrupted not only local commanders but also broader Islamic State communications and operations, he added.

“Nigeria has been very active since that operation in May,” Anderson said. “They continue to prosecute targets themselves.”

He added that Nigerian military pressure, combined with efforts to publicize the operation, had encouraged additional defections and surrenders among ISIS fighters in northeastern Nigeria.

The three-day conference in Angola’s capital, Luanda, was attended by military leaders from 35 African countries, alongside representatives from the U.S. and Brazil.

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I used to think Uranus was the sort of planet you graduated into. Saturn and its rings first, obviously. Jupiter and its cloud bands soon after that. Venus, if it's shrinking to a crescent (which it soon will be), and, of course, Mars and its ice caps. But Uranus? The seventh planet feels like something reserved for people with huge telescopes, expensive eyepieces and incredibly lucky atmospheric seeing. It may be considered an ice giant planet, but it's almost four times farther from the sun than Jupiter and twice as far as Saturn — and it's a lot smaller than both. Uranus didn't figure in my plans.

And yet on a frosty evening in September, a few years ago, I finally got to see it as a blue-green dot nearly 1.8 billion miles away. It was through a large Dobsonian telescope belonging to one very generous member of the Salt Lake Astronomical Society, outside the visitor center at Bryce Canyon National Park, which hosts popular astronomy and night-sky programs . Uranus shone dimly, but I could easily make out its color by averting my eyes (looking slightly to the side of the planet rather than directly at it). That way, the human eye's light-sensitive peripheral cells can catch brightness — it's a technique that's worth learning for all kinds of telescopic astronomy. Even then, Uranus looked like a faint, motionless star rather than a glowing planet. It was no Saturn .

What surprised me wasn't finally seeing Uranus — that was down to a massive telescope. It was how suddenly my perception changed once my eye locked onto it. After seeing it up close (ish), I wanted to know exactly where Uranus was in the night sky. Uranus is technically visible to the naked eye, but it is very challenging to see. It shines at 5.7 magnitude — right at the absolute limit of human visibility, but in Bryce Canyon's dark moonless skies, it was definitely there. Was it a satisfying sight? Not especially — but I could not unsee it. That transition — from looking casually to carefully observing, first with powerful optics and then navigating with the naked eye — is what observational astronomy is all about. Uranus now always figures in my plans, but typically only when I have access to a very large telescope.

Finally seeing Uranus is a milestone. Most people remember their first view of Saturn because its rings impress immediately. But many people remember Uranus because they had to work for it. It's a planet you can discover for yourself — and you can do it this week.

What's happening and when to look

Uranus and Mars in conjunction on July 4, 2026. (Image credit: Starry Night) I tend to forget all about Uranus unless it's involved in a conjunction — and that's exactly what's happening. Conjunctions involving Uranus tend to occur a couple of times each year, typically as one of the fast-moving, closer planets — such as Venus and Mars — appear next to it. Venus was close to Uranus back in April, and on July 4, it's the turn of Mars. A conjunction between Mars and Uranus happens about every two years as the red planet surges past on its far quicker journey around the sun (687 Earth days versus the 84 years it takes Uranus).

This won't be the most convenient conjunction to observe, but they'll get to within about 11 arc minutes of each other — extremely close! From the northern hemisphere, the planets will be low on the eastern horizon in the early morning hours before astronomical dawn. The best time to be up and looking east will be about 3:45 a.m. local time. The observing window is only about 45 minutes before dawn, making it harder to find with every passing minute.

How and when I'm watching it

Uranus and Mars will be visible below the Pleiades on July 4, 2026. (Image credit: Starry Night) Find Mars, find Uranus. That's the entire point of using a close conjunction to see the seventh planet. Mars will serve as a guidepost and be easy to see. It will shine at 1.3 magnitude below the sparkling Pleiades open cluster. You won't be able to miss it in a clear sky. All you have to do is look slightly above Mars for Uranus — first with the naked eye, then with any pair of binoculars (I'll be using 10x50 binoculars). The conjunction will be close enough to fit comfortably in binoculars and to look beautiful in a small telescope, if you have one.

Normally, locating Uranus involves hopping through fairly anonymous star fields while constantly second-guessing whether you are looking at a star or the planet itself. Here, Mars does the navigation for you. Your reward will be the sight of a tiny pale point with a subtle blue-green tint. The satisfaction comes less from appearance and more from seeing something so distant directly with your own eyes.

There's also something fitting about this conjunction falling on July 4 during the 250th anniversary year in the U.S. Uranus takes 84 years to orbit the sun , meaning it has completed almost exactly three orbits since the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776. The planet itself was not discovered until 1781, when William Herschel identified it while searching the sky systematically rather than casually. It's a reminder that back in 1776, only six planets were known about. Now we're on a hunt for a ninth planet (sorry, Pluto ).

Stargazer's corner: July 3-9, 2026

See the moon and Saturn in conjunction early on July 7, 2026. (Image credit: Starry Night) July opens with a slowly darkening sky after the long twilight of late June. Earth reaches aphelion on July 6, its farthest point from the sun (the seasons are driven by Earth's tilted axis, not its distance from the sun). So the sun's disk will be at its smallest in the sky, one factor contributing to the total solar eclipse on Aug. 12 . Meanwhile, the very early hours of July 7 and 8 will see a close conjunction of a last quarter moon and Saturn in the east, kicking off relatively moonless conditions for the following 10 nights or so.

Asterism of the week: Summer Triangle

By early July, the Summer Triangle dominates the sky after dark. Formed by Vega, high overhead, Deneb to the northeast and Altair lower in the south, it creates a vast, unmistakable pattern that defines the season. It's actually not a constellation, but an asterism — a popular shape in the sky, like the Big Dipper — and its scale is what makes it so useful. Once you've got it nailed, it becomes a framework for the entire sky, helping you orient yourself instantly all season long. It also traces the path of the Milky Way , which runs straight through it, adding an extra sight if you're somewhere not blighted by light pollution.

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Marvel 's stories have always existed on the fringes of fantasy and borrowed tropes from the genre over the years. Heroes like Doctor Strange and the Scarlet Witch , in particular, have leaned more into these elements as the resident magic users of the comic giant's multiverse with stories like The Darkhold Saga and A Separate Reality . Thor and the Asgardians , meanwhile, have incorporated mythology into the fold in their own way to make some of the most iconic and enduring characters in superhero history. However, rarely has Marvel embraced the trappings of high fantasy across any media. A new comic run now looks to remedy that by welcoming readers into a new world featuring beloved heroes reimagined to fit a tabletop gaming-inspired setting.