This Week in Science: Big Rockets, Old Lipstick, and Space Murder

It’s time for “Nerd News,” covering the most important news for your brain.

Here’s a quick rundown of this week in science . . .

1.  SpaceX tested its Starship rocket again yesterday.  It’s the largest ever, and the one Elon Musk wants to use to land us on Mars.  It went fast enough to reach orbit for the first time, then EXPLODED during reentry.  But that’s still progress.

(Here it is launching, floating, and when plasma formed on reentry.)

2.  In other space news:  Vibrations from an interstellar meteor might have just been caused by a big truck . . . astronauts get lots of headaches, which could be an issue for space travel . . . and a study looked at how murder in space would be investigated.  Blood spatter looks way different in zero gravity.

3.  In animal news:  Cheetahs are the fastest land animal because they’re not too big, or too small . . . elephants bury their dead, just like us . . . and if you’ve ever wondered what the inside of a hedgehog looks like, scientists spent six years CAT scanning 13,000 different animals.  (Here’s a video.)

4.  And in beauty news:  The world’s oldest tube of lipstick from 3,500 years ago was unearthed in Iran . . . and facial piercings might date back to the Stone Age.