Poor weather has delayed Solar Impulse 2's departure from India on the next leg of its epic bid to become the first plane to fly around the world powered solely by the sun.

The aircraft had been due to leave Ahmedabad city in the western state of Gujarat on Sunday and travel on to Myanmar after a short stopover in the holy city of Varanasi in northern India.

A major Japanese machinery company said Friday that it has succeeded in transmitting energy wirelessly, marking a step toward making solar power generation in space a reality.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries said it used microwave technology to send 10 kilowatts of power -- enough to run a set of conventional kitchen appliances -- through the air to a receiver 500 meters (1,640 feet) away.

Four identical satellites which will study the interactions between solar winds and the Earth's magnetic fields blasted off into Space on Thursday and settled into orbit begin a two-year study, NASA said.

The Delta V rocket of the United Launch Alliance lifted off from its launchpad from Cape Canaveral in Florida at 22:44 local time (2:44 GMT Friday) as planned at the beginning a 30-minute window of opportunity.

Fossils of a wacky-looking, 7-foot (2-meter)-long sea creature are providing new clues about how limbs developed in the family of animals that includes lobsters, crabs, scorpions and insects.

The fossils of the ancient sea creature were found in Morocco. Their discovery is reported by researchers at Yale and Oxford universities in a paper released Wednesday by the journal Nature.

Japanese scientists have succeeded in transmitting energy wirelessly, in a key step that could one day make solar power generation in space a possibility, an official said Thursday.

Researchers used microwaves to deliver 1.8 kilowatts of power -- enough to run an electric kettle -- through the air with pinpoint accuracy to a receiver 55 metres (170 feet) away.

Two Russian cosmonauts and an American astronaut on Thursday returned to Earth aboard a Soyuz space capsule after six months at the International Space Station.

Yelena Serova -- the first female Russian cosmonaut to have spent time on the ISS -- landed along with Alexander Samokutyaev and Barry Wilmore in snowy Kazakhstan just after sunrise.

Solar Impulse 2 has broken a distance record for solar-powered planes as part of its bid to be the first to circumnavigate the globe powered solely by the sun. 

By the time it arrived in Ahmedabad, in western India on Tuesday, the plane had flown 1,468 kilometers (912 miles), the flight's organizers said. Solar Impulse project chairman and co-pilot Bertrand Piccard was at the controls.

Plans to dump dredge waste in Australia's Great Barrier Reef as part of an Indian-backed port expansion have been shelved in favor of land disposal, Queensland state said Wednesday.

The Australian government in January broadly ruled out allowing dredge dumping in the Great Barrier Reef area, but the Port Abbot project in north Queensland had been approved last year. 

Florida is widely known as the Sunshine State but when it comes to harnessing solar power, lots of customers find it just doesn't pay because electricity is already cheap and there is little incentive to make the change from fossil fuels.

Anger over the situation has whipped up an unusual coalition of hardline conservatives, evangelical Christians and liberal environmentalists who want to break down what they describe as a "monopoly" held by big power companies.

A team of Australian and New Zealand researchers has tracked scores of blue whales off Antarctica, eavesdropping as the world's largest animals  began their rumbling song, which can be detected 750 kilometers (465 miles) away.

During the six-week Australia-New Zealand Antarctic Ecosystem Voyage to the Southern Ocean, which returned Wednesday, the Antarctic marine scientists listened for the low moans of the endangered whales, and then tracked them to their feeding grounds.