A sickly ginger kitten named Bebe is pulled out of a cat carrier at a veterinary clinic in the Cypriot capital, Nicosia.

Despite warnings to stay away from Iceland's latest volcanic eruption near Reykjavik, a group of curious visitors told AFP they couldn't resist the lure of lava that is "orange like the sun."

While volcanologists say the eruption remains "low intensity" for now, initial estimates indicate that its flow is significantly more powerful than the two previous eruptions in 2021 and 2022 on the Reykjanes peninsula.

A SpaceX capsule carrying two Saudi astronauts has splashed down off the coast of Florida, completing the second private mission to the International Space Station.

The United Arab Emirates unveiled plans Monday to send a spaceship to explore the solar system's main asteroid belt, the latest space project by the oil-rich nation after it launched the successful Hope spacecraft to Mars in 2020.

Dubbed the Emirates Mission to the Asteroid Belt, the project aims to develop a spacecraft in the coming years and then launch it in 2028 to study various asteroids.

China's burgeoning space program plans to place astronauts on the moon before 2030 and expand the country's orbiting space station, officials said Monday.

Monday's announcement comes amid against the background of a rivalry with the U.S. for reaching new milestones in outer space, reflecting their competition for influence on global events.

Towering a couple of hours from one of the world's largest cities, the Popocatepetl volcano has been coating nearby towns with ash and disrupting flights at Mexico City's airport, the busiest in Latin America.

Hundreds of explosions have spit lava from the snow-tipped peak of the 17,797-foot Popocatepetl (puh-puh-ka-TEH-pet-tl). Approximately 25 million people live within 60 miles of the mountain. Volcanologists say that, while a massive eruption doesn't appear imminent, eruptions are likely to continue, as they have for three decades.

Typhoon Mawar was a Category 4 super typhoon with maximum sustained winds of 150 mph (241 kph) or greater when it crossed the northern tip of Guam on Wednesday night. It was the strongest typhoon to hit the U.S. Pacific territory since 2002.

A few commonly used weather terms and their definitions, which rely on material from the National Weather Service:

Sea urchins in Israel's Gulf of Eilat have been dying off at an alarming rate, researchers announced Wednesday — a development that threatens the Red Sea's prized coral reef ecosystems.

According to Tel Aviv University scientists, an unknown pathogen is killing off the black sea urchin, Diadema setosum. The massive die-off first began in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, from where it has spread to the neighboring Red Sea, the scientists said.

Saudi Arabia's first astronauts in decades rocketed toward the International Space Station on a chartered multimillion-dollar flight Sunday.

SpaceX launched the ticket-holding crew, led by a retired NASA astronaut now working for the company that arranged the trip from Kennedy Space Center. Also on board: a U.S. businessman who now owns a sports car racing team.

After decades on the sidelines, African countries are venturing into the space industry, hoping to reap rewards in agriculture, disaster prevention and security.