June 28, 2025

The Forgotten War

This week marks the 75th anniversary of the start of the Korean War, a conflict that killed at least 2.5 million people but left the political situation on the Korean peninsula fundamentally unchanged. After three years of brutal fighting, North Korea and South Korea remained divided at the 38th parallel and Kim Il-Sung continued to rule in the North (the dynasty he established holds power to this day). While the North is one of the poorest countries in Asia, the South has developed into a representative democracy with one of the world’s most advanced economies.

Korean War. With her brother on her back a war weary civilian Korean girl trudges by a stalled M-26 tank, at Haengju, Korea on June 9, 1951.

The Cold War Turns Hot

Maj. R. V. Spencer/U.S. Department of Defense

Aftereffects of War: The Korean War: The Korean Peninsula. Find out about the history of the division of Korea into two countries - the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North) and the Republic of Korea (South) at the end of the Korean War (1953).

What Was the Outcome of the Korean War?

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demilitarized zone (DMZ). Korean War. 38th Parallel. Military Demarcation Line (MDL), sign located in the woods at Pan Mun Jom (DMZ), separating North and South Korea, July 1, 1993. The DMZ was created July 27, 1953 at P'anmunjom.

The DMZ Today

Tech. Sgt. Scott Stewart/U.S. Department of Defense

Timeline of the Korean War

Juche: The North’s Political Ideology

The Stellar and the Divine

This week’s news includes a Hindu festival and a pair of astronomy milestones.

Chariots of the gods

Today is Rathayatra, a Hindu chariot festival that gave us the English word juggernaut. The word comes from the god Jagannatha (“Lord of the World”), a form of Vishnu in his avatar as Krishna. During Rathayatra, devotees pull three gargantuan wooden chariots bearing sacred images (murtis) of Jagannatha and his two siblings through the streets of Puri, Odisha, on the eastern coast of India.

Three rathas (chariot) in the crowd of Hindu devotees during Rathayatra festival at Puri, Odisha, India, on July 14, 2018. Jagannath Rath Yatra. Hinduism.

Glimpse of the heavens

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory, named for the groundbreaking American astronomer, released its first images to the public this week. The pictures, taken from the observatory’s perch in the Andes Mountains of Chile, show striking collections of millions of galaxies. The images are a fitting representation for Rubin, whose work on galaxy motion and dark matter proved foundational to the field.

"Trifid and Lagoon", This image combines 678 separate images taken by NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory in just over seven hours of observing time. Combining many images in this way clearly reveals otherwise faint or invisible details, such as the clouds of gas and dust that comprise the Trifid nebula (top) and the Lagoon nebula, which are several thousand light-years away from Earth. (telescope, outer space, camera, photograph, deep field, galaxies). Date created: May 28, 2025

Webb spies a planet

In a first for NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, the space observatory captured what could be direct images of an extrasolar planet. The faint infrared signature, which scientists judged to be a Saturn-sized planet orbiting the nearby red dwarf star TWA 7, was detected using the telescope’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (or MIRI).

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AHMEDABAD, INDIA- JUNE 12, 2025: Members of the investigation team examine the site of the Air India flight crash on June 12, 2025, in Ahmedabad, India. An Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner operating as Flight AI171 from Ahmedabad to London's Gatwick Airport crashed shortly after takeoff carrying 232 passengers and 10 crew members. The plane crashed on a resident doctors' hostel in Ahmedabad, which suffered major damage in the accident. India, Asia, Crash, Accident,

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