Science News Roundup: Japanese billionaire Maezawa blasts off into space; Alien 'super-Jupiter' breaks the mold on where planets can exist and more

The 46-year-old fashion magnate and art collector successfully launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan along with his assistant Yozo Hirano, who will document the journey, as well as Russian cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin. Medicago's plant-based vaccine trial shows 75.3% efficacy against Delta variant Canadian drug developer Medicago's plant-based COVID-19 vaccine candidate, enhanced by GlaxoSmithKline's booster, was 75.3% effective against the Delta variant of the virus in a late stage study, the two companies said on Tuesday.

Following is a summary of current science news briefs.

Chinese sighting of 'cube' on moon rouses speculation, inspires memes

A photograph of a cube-like object captured by a Chinese rover on the far side of the moon has fanned speculation over what it could be and inspired a host of memes by Chinese internet users. The Yutu-2 caught an image of what seems like a large cubic object on the horizon about 80 metres (87 yards) from its location, said Our Space, a Chinese government science website, citing the rover's last log on Dec. 3.

Cycling-American rider Birch swapping velodrome for outer space

Eleven-time American national champion Christina Birch is swapping the cycling velodrome to start a journey she hopes will take her all the way to the moon. Birch's drastic change of direction comes after being selected for the NASA Astronaut Class of 2021, which will see her embark on a two-year training course for the Artemis missions in Houston, Texas.

Exclusive-Aleph, Wacker team up to fast-track mass lab meat production

Israeli lab-grown meat startup Aleph Farms and German chemicals maker Wacker Chemie will work together to improve production processes for growth proteins to remove one of the biggest obstacles to large-scale cultivated meat production. Cultivated meat, which is grown from animal muscle cells in a lab, has been getting a lot of attention as a way to address climate change by cutting energy, land and water use in the meat industry.

Japanese billionaire Maezawa blasts off into space

Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa set out to became the first space tourist in more than a decade to travel to the International Space Station (ISS) when he blasted off on Wednesday, a voyage he sees as a dry run for his planned trip around the moon with Elon Musk's SpaceX in 2023. The 46-year-old fashion magnate and art collector successfully launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan along with his assistant Yozo Hirano, who will document the journey, as well as Russian cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin.

Medicago's plant-based vaccine trial shows 75.3% efficacy against Delta variant

Canadian drug developer Medicago's plant-based COVID-19 vaccine candidate, enhanced by GlaxoSmithKline's booster, was 75.3% effective against the Delta variant of the virus in a late stage study, the two companies said on Tuesday. They said the vaccine's overall efficacy rate against all variants of the coronavirus was 71%, except Omicron, which was not in circulation when the study was underway.

Alien 'super-Jupiter' breaks the mold on where planets can exist

One of the largest planets ever detected orbits at an enormous distance around two stars with a combined mass up to 10 times greater than our sun, an extreme celestial family that shatters assumptions about the type of places where planets can exist. The planet, located about 325 light years from Earth, is a gas giant apparently similar in composition to Jupiter but about 11 times more massive, researchers said on Wednesday. It belongs to a planetary class called "super-Jupiters" exceeding the mass of our solar system's largest planet.

Japan billionaire Maezawa to fulfil childhood dream with space flight

Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa said he could barely contain his excitement a day ahead of blasting off to the International Space Station in a prelude to a more ambitious trip around the moon with Elon Musk's SpaceX planned in 2023. The 46-year-old fashion magnate and art collector has been training at a space centre outside Moscow in recent months before becoming the first space tourist to travel to the ISS in more than a decade. Maezawa will travel aboard a Soyuz spacecraft, which will launch from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Wednesday, accompanied by his assistant Yozo Hirano, who will document the journey, and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin. Speaking from Baikonur ahead of his 12-day space journey, Maezawa said flying into space had been a childhood dream.

(With inputs from agencies.)