Our daily spacewalk around the world

🇨🇳 China released a timeline to become the first country to collect samples from Mars. A top Chinese space official said Beijing plans to launch a spacecraft “around 2030” to gather rock samples collected by its Mars rover and bring them back to Earth. If China’s timeline holds up, their mission would return sooner than NASA’s current plan to collect Martian rock samples gathered by its Perseverance rover, setting up what some analysts call a “Space Race 2.0.”

💨 G7 countries agreed to shut down coal-powered plants by 2035 – with a catch. The new agreement bans the use of “unabated” coal past the deadline, a term that leaves room for countries to use coal-powered plants past 2035 if their carbon pollution is captured before entering the atmosphere. The agreement also includes a caveat that countries can phase out coal usage in a more ambiguous timeline “consistent with keeping a limit of 1.5°C temperature rise within reach.”

🇮🇳 India’s government reportedly approved a failed assassination attempt on US soil last November. A new Washington Post report, which cited multiple unnamed sources, said the alleged plot to kill a US citizen and Sikh activist living in America was approved by senior-level members of India’s intelligence agency, including its chief at the time. India’s government denied the report and said it plans to conduct its own investigation into the matter.