Science News Roundup: All-private astronaut team lifts off on landmark launch to space station; Earliest-known galaxy offers clues about the primordial universe and more

The four-man team selected by Houston-based startup Axiom Space Inc for its landmark debut spaceflight and orbital science mission lifted off at 11:17 a.m. EDT (1517 GMT) from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Scientists discover ancient cemetery of flying reptiles in Chile's Atacama desert Scientists in Chile say they have unearthed a rare cemetery with well-preserved bones of ancient flying reptiles that roamed the Andean country's Atacama desert more than 100 million years ago.

Following is a summary of current science news briefs.

Earliest-known galaxy offers clues about the primordial universe

Astronomers have discovered what may be the earliest and most distant galaxy ever observed, one that formed relatively soon after the Big Bang event that marked the origin of the universe and may be populated by the novel first generation of stars. The galaxy, called HD1, dates from a bit more than 300 million years after the Big Bang that occurred about 13.8 billion years ago, researchers said on Thursday. The observations suggest HD1 formed stars at a staggering rate - perhaps about 100 new stars annually - or instead harbored what would be the earliest-known supermassive black hole, they added.

All-private astronaut team lifts off on landmark launch to space station

A SpaceX rocket ship blasted off on Friday carrying the first all-private astronaut team ever launched to the International Space Station (ISS), a flight hailed by industry executives and NASA as a milestone in the commercialization of spaceflight. The four-man team selected by Houston-based startup Axiom Space Inc for its landmark debut spaceflight and orbital science mission lifted off at 11:17 a.m. EDT (1517 GMT) from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Scientists discover ancient cemetery of flying reptiles in Chile's Atacama desert

Scientists in Chile say they have unearthed a rare cemetery with well-preserved bones of ancient flying reptiles that roamed the Andean country's Atacama desert more than 100 million years ago. The remains belong to pterosaurs, scientists determined, flying creatures that lived alongside dinosaurs that had a long wingspan and fed by filtering water through long thin teeth, similar to flamingos.