A European-Japanese spacecraft has returned its first close-up pictures of Mercury in a long-awaited flyby.
Why it matters: The European Space Agency and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency launched the BepiColombo mission to Mercury in 2018, and the two spacecraft should make it into orbit around the innermost planet in 2025.
Microsoft's early finance of carbon removal projects as part of its wider climate pledge has revealed hurdles that must be overcome to enable large-scale deployment of the technologies.
Driving the news: Microsoft officials and other experts, in a piece in the journal Nature, describe efforts by Microsoft and the online payments platform Stripe to contract with companies that pull CO2 from the atmosphere.
