In this edition of "Science Saturday", we look at the space and science news that made headlines during the past two weeks, ranging from Mars' aurora to Chinese astronauts' spacewalk.

The Mars Mission

The UAE Mars mission captured the first pictures of the red planet's aurora. The images, taken by the Hope Probe, show a ghostly glow known as the discrete aurora. They were released five months after the UAE became the fifth nation to enter the red planet's orbit. The mission's team said this discovery will open new doors to understanding the Martian atmosphere and how it interacts with the solar activity. Hope will continue to gather a full overview of the Martian atmosphere for the next two years.

New white dwarf

An extreme white dwarf sets cosmic records for its small size and huge mass. It was formed by a binary star system, where two stars orbit each other. Scientists say the highly magnetized and rapidly rotating white dwarf is 35 percent more massive than our sun. But it's just a bit larger than the Earth's moon. This means it has the greatest mass, but is the tiniest of any known white dwarf, owing to its tremendous density. It's located relatively nearby in our Milky Way galaxy, about 130 light years from Earth.

China's spacewalk

Two Chinese astronauts, or taikonauts, performed China's first spacewalk from its new Tiangong space station. Liu Boming and Tang Hongbo stepped outside the core module of the space station last Sunday. They positioned a camera and tested a robotic arm during their seven hours of spacewalk. They're expected to stay at the core module for three months to set up Tiangong, which is expected to be fully operational by around the end of 2022. The spacewalk is the second by taikonauts since the Shenzhou-7 manned mission of 2008.

Fight against malaria

The World Health Organization (WHO) declared China malaria-free after a seven-decade fight. The country reported 30 million cases of the infectious disease annually in the 1940s. Seven decades of fight included efforts like reducing mosquito breeding grounds, spraying insecticide in homes and distributing insecticide-treated nets nationwide. After four consecutive years of zero indigenous cases, China applied for WHO certification in 2020.