// NATURE NEWS — SPAZIO & SCIENZA
See a tardigrade shed its skin — October’s best science images
The month’s sharpest science shots, selected by Nature’s photo team.
Just another day in space. NASA’s Astrobee, a cubic robot around 30 centimetres across, is designed to work in the microgravity environment inside the International Space Station (ISS). Each of NASA’s three Astrobees — working autonomously, or controlled by ISS astronauts or Earth-bound flight controllers and researchers — float around taking on tasks such as drawing up inventories and recording experiments. The robots also function as experimental subjects to test microgravity software and hardware.
The Canadian-built arm of the ISS, Canadarm2, holds a Cygnus XL cargo spacecraft during undocking operations. It was released about 420 kilometres above the North Atlantic Ocean on 9 October.
Sting mechanics. A bee’s stinger was observed in action as it injected its venom, called apitoxin, into a gel that mimics skin1. Fiorella Ramirez-Esquivel, a sensory ecologist at the University of New South Wales in Canberra, and her collaborators detached the stinger from a honey bee (Apis mellifera) and studied the mechanics of its pumping mechanism. They discovered that it involves two collapsible cylinders that act as pistons.
Mourning ritual. In northwestern Namibia, Italian photographer Federico Veronesi followed tracks on a dry river bed to catch a rare glimpse of an elephant carrying a dead calf. His shot was the overall winner of the 2026 Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition, which is developed and produced by the Natural History Museum, London. Researchers have documented a range of mourning behaviours in African elephants (Loxodonta spp.), including carrying and guarding the dead.
Federico Veronesi/Wildlife Photographer of the Year
Agorastos Papatsanis/Wildlife Photographer of the Year
Agorastos Papatsanis/Wildlife Photographer of the Year
Francisco Negroni/Wildlife Photographer of the Year
Francisco Negroni/Wildlife Photographer of the Year