A fifth-grade teacher said she is being investigated by the Florida Department of Education after she showed her students "Strange World," a 2022 animated Disney movie featuring a character who is biracial and gay.

Nasa has revealed chunks of a distant asteroid that were transported back down to Earth. The dark, dusty sample comes from a 4.5-billion-year-old asteroid, and might include the “building blocks of life”, the space agency said. Already, the material from the asteroid Bennu has been found to include high-carbon content and water, the space agency said. But it will be distributed around the world with a view to finding out everything from the history of our solar system to how life came about. Scientists and space agency leaders showed photos and video of the asteroid material - returned to Earth last month - at a live streamed event at the Johnson Space Centre in Houston, Texas. The display came after a capsule containing an estimated 250g of rocks and dust collected from asteroid Bennu, touched down in the Utah desert near Salt Lake City on September 24. Nasa has said it was “the biggest, carbon-rich asteroid sample ever delivered to Earth”, and its contents have now been hailed as “scientific treasure”. Nasa administrator Bill Nelson said the sample will “help scientists investigate the origins of life on our own planet for generations to come”. He added: “Almost everything we do at Nasa seeks to answer questions about who we are and where we come from. “Nasa missions like Osiris-Rex will improve our understanding of asteroids that could threaten Earth while giving us a glimpse into what lies beyond. “The sample has made it back to Earth, but there is still so much science to come - science like we’ve never seen before.” Almost 60 million miles away, asteroid Bennu is a 4.5-billion-year-old remnant of our early solar system and scientists believe it can help shed light on how planets formed and evolved. The spacecraft launched on September 8 2016 and arrived at Bennu in December 2018. It dropped the samples off sealed in a capsule last month. “Already this is scientific treasure,” said the mission’s lead scientist, Professor Dante Lauretta, of the University of Arizona on Wednesday. In a statement, he added: “As we peer into the ancient secrets preserved within the dust and rocks of asteroid Bennu, we are unlocking a time capsule that offers us profound insights into the origins of our solar system. “The bounty of carbon-rich material and the abundant presence of water-bearing clay minerals are just the tip of the cosmic iceberg. “These discoveries, made possible through years of dedicated collaboration and cutting-edge science, propel us on a journey to understand not only our celestial neighbourhood but also the potential for life’s beginnings. “With each revelation from Bennu, we draw closer to unravelling the mysteries of our cosmic heritage.” Nasa‘s mission goal was to collect was 60 grams of asteroid sample. But when the canister lid was opened, Nasa said scientists discovered “bonus material” covering the outside of the collector head, canister lid, and base. There was so much extra material it slowed down the process of collecting and containing the primary sample, Nasa said. Scientists are not sure exactly how much of Bennu they brought back because the main sample chamber has not yet been opened. Mr Lauretta said: “It’s been going slow and meticulous, but the science is already starting.” He said there is “a whole treasure chest of extraterrestrial material” still to be examined. During Wednesday’s press conference, Osiris-Rex sample analyst Daniel Glavin added: “This stuff is an astrobiologist’s dream, I just can’t wait to get at it. “We’re going to learn so much about the origin of the solar system, the evolution and potentially how even life started here on Earth.” Additional reporting by agencies Read More ‘Ring of fire’ solar eclipse this month will be last until 2046 Prada to design Nasa’s next-gen space suits for Artemis astronauts 1.2 mile-high ‘dust devil’ spotted on Mars by Nasa’s Perseverance rover Rover captures one-mile-high whirlwind on Mars Earth hit by a huge solar storm that would devastate civilisation, trees show Scientists see afterglow from huge planets crashing into each other for first time

The years-in-the-making Oxford Dictionary of African American English will offer proper attribution to words and phrases that originated in Black culture.

By Arpan Chaturvedi and Aditya Kalra NEW DELHI Google has accused India's antitrust body of ordering changes to

By Trevor Hunnicutt and Zeba Siddiqui WASHINGTON The White House is working to finalize as soon as Tuesday

Try these games if you're into Lethal Company.

RichFlows posted a video showing off the tattoos of MrBeast's name around his kneecap

LoLdle answers for Nov. 30 across all formats including Classic, Quote, Ability, Splash and Emoji.

Anil Agarwal’s $19 billion semiconductor-making ambitions in India were dealt another setback after his Taiwanese partner decided to

By Yuka Obayashi TOKYO (Reuters) -Toyota and oil refiner Idemitsu Kosan announced a tie up on Thursday to develop and

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) administrative law judge ruled on Friday that Intuit Inc., the maker of the

SpaceX is ready to launch its next-generation Starship rocket, according to Elon Musk, pending regulatory approval. Starship is the most powerful rocket ever built, measuring 121 metres in height and capable of producing 5,000 metric tons of thrust. Once testing is complete, the craft will form part of Nasa’s Artemis mission to return astronauts to the Moon. Mr Musk also plans to use the rocket to transport people and cargo around the solar system, eventually using fleets of Starships to establish a permanent human colony on Mars. The next launch will be the second attempt at an orbital flight test, with the only previous effort ending in an explosion just three minutes into the 90 minute flight earlier this year. Each launch attempt requires approval from the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), while also requiring favourable weather conditions. “Starship is ready to launch, awaiting FAA licence approval,” Mr Musk posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Wednesday. A spokesperson for the FAA previously told The Independent that the launch licence application for Starship depends on various requirements being met, including reviews on policy, payload, safety, airspace integration, financial responsibility and environmental impacts. “The FAA will make a licence determination only after the agency is satisfied SpaceX meets all licensing, safety and other regulatory requirements,” the spokesperson said. SpaceX typically only reveals the date for rocket tests a few days before they take place, though numerous factors can still delay them. Weather at SpaceX’s Starbase facility in Texas is currently favourable for a launch, though the area can be prone to storms and hurricanes between June and November. SpaceX performed its 62nd orbital rocket launch of 2023 earlier this week, breaking its own record for the most number of launches in a single year. The private company has delivered roughly 80 per cent of all Earth payload mass to orbit in 2023, with Mr Musk predicting that this figure will rise to more than 99 per cent once Starship is in operation. “These magnitudes are madness to consider, but necessary to make consciousness multiplanetary,” he posted on X on Sunday. Read More SpaceX smashes rocket launch record as Musk eyes historic Starship mission SpaceX abandons YouTube for live streams of launches in favour of X/Twitter