Exploring the Final Frontier: South Korea's Ambitious Space Plans and More

South Korea has ambitious plans to land on Mars by 2045 and will establish the Korea Aerospace Administration to drive this initiative. Concurrently, India's Agnikul Cosmos successfully launched its second privately built rocket. Additionally, research reveals that Tmesipteris oblanceolata has the largest known genome, and the Webb telescope has identified the earliest-known galaxy.

Following is a summary of current science news briefs.

South Korea plans Mars landing in 2045 as it launches first space agency

South Korea plans to make a Mars landing by 2045 and spend 100 trillion won ($72.6 billion) until then on space exploration, President Yoon Suk Yeol said on Thursday at the launch of the country's first space agency. The Korea Aerospace Administration (KASA) will lead the country's "space economy," with hundreds of businesses and enterprises working to catapult South Korea into the ranks of the world's top five space powers, Yoon said.

Indian space startup Agnikul launches country's second privately built rocket

India's Agnikul Cosmos launched its Agnibaan rocket for the first time on Thursday, powered by the only Indian rocket engine to use both gas and liquid fuel in the country's second flight of a privately built rocket. The Agnibaan's first flight had been called off four times in the last two months because of technical issues. The most recent cancellation was Tuesday, when launch was aborted five seconds before lift-off.

Humble fern from New Caledonia boasts world's largest genome

You thought the living organism with ;/"he largest genome might be the blue whale, an African elephant or perhaps a giant redwood tree? Not even close. A human being? Wrong again. That honor instead goes to a little fern that grows in the French overseas territory of New Caledonia in the southwest Pacific Ocean. New research shows that this fork fern species, called Tmesipteris oblanceolata, has a genome - all the genetic information of an organism - that is 7% larger than that of the previous record-holder, the Japanese flowering plant Paris japonica, and more than 50 times the size of the human genome.

Earliest-known galaxy, spotted by Webb telescope, is a beacon to cosmic dawn

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has spotted the earliest-known galaxy, one that is surprisingly bright and big considering it formed during the universe's infancy - at only 2% its current age. Webb, which by peering across vast cosmic distances is looking way back in time, observed the galaxy as it existed about 290 million years after the Big Bang event that initiated the universe roughly 13.8 billion years ago, the researchers said. This period spanning the universe's first few hundred million years is called cosmic dawn.