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It's going to be a massive month for Tom Holland , with The Odyssey lined up for release on July 17, followed by the global debut of Spider-Man: Brand New Day . Potentially the start of a new trilogy, Holland's fourth solo Spider-Man movie is the first in the series to be directed by Destin Daniel Cretton . The movie comes at a pivotal moment in time for the Marvel Cinematic Universe , and has inadvertently been charged with the responsibility of reviving the once-glorious franchise during an extended period of disappointment. The last several MCU movies have underperformed at the box office, but Spider-Man remains an outlier. Even though Sony distributes the Spidey films and not Disney, the character has the global appeal that pushed his previous solo outing to record numbers. Early box-office projections are looking incredibly promising for Spider-Man: Brand New Day as well.

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Nearly 150 million people shared in the "moon joy" of Artemis II on NASA channels, setting a new agency record in the process.

NASA numbers indicate that 149.4 million people used agency platforms in March and April to follow the four astronauts of Artemis II as they prepped for their mission, lifted off aboard the Space Launch System rocket, flew by the moon and finally splashed down in the Pacific Ocean. The viewership figure includes the mission's 24/7 livestreams of mission activities and views from the Orion spacecraft .

"Artemis II's human‑spaceflight narrative, real‑time crew updates, and highly visual moments drew millions of new followers across platforms," the agency stated of the historic lunar flyby mission, which ran from April 1 to April 10.

On board were NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman , Victor Glover and Christina Koch as well as Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen . The quartet flew farther than any human before them while making the first journey to the moon since Apollo 17 's landing in 1972.

Glover, Koch and Hansen became the first Black person, woman and non-American, respectively, to fly beyond low Earth orbit , and the crew engaged repeatedly in live events with politicians, journalists, students and other audiences from afar.

The live broadcast drew praise on social media for showing the work of the astronauts, including struggles with toilet venting , the crew's descriptions of the lunar surface and a moving group hug when the crew suggested naming a lunar crater after Wiseman's late wife, Carroll.

Launch (April 1)

NASA's official Artemis II launch webcast reached a peak of nearly 3.67 million simultaneous viewers. That's a record, surpassing other big launches in recent agency history, NASA stated, including that of the uncrewed Artemis I mission to lunar orbit in November 2022 or the James Webb Space Telescope in December 2021. (The agency did not disclose in the release how many views each event received.)

Roughly 16.6 million people watched the Artemis II launch live across agency platforms, with that number rising to 23.9 million views when taking into account those who tuned in after the fact. NASA's Spanish-language broadcast alone received a "landmark peak" of 458,366 simultaneous views, which has since risen to 2.8 million total views, according to the agency.

Lunar flyby (April 6)

NASA's lunar flyby broadcast alone "delivered one of the largest peak audiences ever recorded," according to the agency. As many as 1,471,069 people tuned in at the same time. Nearly 900,000 of those folks watched on YouTube, and about 190,000 viewers tuned in via X or Twitch.

The Artemis II crew saw a solar eclipse from beyond the moon's far side. (Image credit: NASA) Splashdown (April 10)

The dramatic reentry, splashdown and recovery of the four Artemis 2 astronauts generated a peak of 3,838,418 live viewers on agency platforms — nearly 5% higher than the liftoff's peak viewership.

NASA attributed the increase to interest in the "riskiest moments" that some global news outlets highlighted about the mission, "particularly Orion's re-entry and heat‑shield performance." (Unexpected issues with Artemis I's heat shield drew concerns from some when the agency flew the same design on Artemis II — although all turned out well , partly because NASA modified Artemis II's reentry trajectory.) Some news outlets, however, have said global interest came because the astronauts showed " worldly harmony " and shared their experiences with " heartfelt words ."

Total, non-simultaneous live views of the splashdown on agency platforms clocked in at 24.1 million, which rises to 29.5 million when taking into account people who tuned in after the fact. But when bringing in a selection of the major broadcasters who covered the landing, NASA said that viewership rose to "hundreds of millions of potential viewers worldwide."

The agency focused on select streaming platforms in its analysis, including HBO Max, Netflix, Peacock and Amazon Prime Video. News networks were not included. The streaming platforms released subscriber numbers, but not mission viewership numbers. HBO Max had between 120 million and 150 million global subscribers during the mission, Netflix 325 million paid global subscribers (as Netflix allows some account sharing), Peacock between 36 million and 41 million U.S. subscribers, and Amazon Prime Video up to 275 million global subscribers, according to NASA.

Websites

NASA said a "major surge" came in agency website traffic because of Artemis II.

Entire mission: NASA.gov received 125.1 million page views during the mission, which was a 150% increase over the 50 million who logged in during the entire month of March. A website showing Orion's orbit, called "Artemis II Mission in Real Time," or AROW, "surpassed" 11 million cumulative views since launch, although NASA did not say whether the AROW views continued to be counted after the mission concluded.

Launch day (April 1): The mission's debut brought 17.6 million page views across all NASA sites, from 8.3 million individual visitors.

Lunar flyby (April 6): More than 16.5 million page views came to NASA websites from 6.2 million individual visitors. As a part of the total page views, the NASA homepage got 2.3 million, while AROW showed 1.9 million.

Splashdown (April 10): More than 6.1 million people logged on to NASA websites on splashdown day, generating 16 million page views. Of that figure, AROW alone generated 1 million page views.

Social media

NASA tracked 261 million individuals engaging with its social media accounts (which were not specified) between March 27 and April 13. Splashdown was the only milestone selected for individual analysis, with 35 million engagements shown on April 10.

"Public reaction to NASA's Artemis II mission remained largely steady across launch week, with neutral and positive posts dominating the online conversation. Neutral sentiment consistently led daily discussion, ranging from 47 to 60%, while positive reactions accounted for 30 to 42%, fueled by excitement over the crew's historic lunar journey, striking mission imagery, and renewed interest in deep space exploration," the agency stated of the engagement.

NASA also noted "strong amplification" on social media from "major news outlets, brands, and international partners." The Canadian Space Agency , working with other Canadian government departments and agencies, was the major international partner on Artemis II because of Hansen and backup CSA astronaut Jenni Gibbons (who also served as CAPCOM during lunar flyby), among other mission contributions. CSA hosted several live mission events in Canada, and had extensive social media engagement. The European Space Agency , which contributed the service module for Orion, also posted frequently during the mission.

NASA experienced "major social media growth" through Artemis II, with these figures below said to encompass the milestones between liftoff and splashdown. "Collectively, these gains highlight how Artemis II's human‑spaceflight narrative, real‑time crew updates, and highly visual moments drew millions of new followers across platforms," the agency stated.

NASA's Instagram added 4.6 million followers. (The agency did not include the baseline number of followers during the mission in April, but as of July 7 it stands at 104 million).

NASA's Artemis account on Instagram grew by 2 million, which was said to be "a 66 percent increase" while the mission was ongoing.

The agency also noted "significant gains" on X, Facebook and YouTube. Numbers were not released for X. YouTube subscribers increased by 2 million during the mission in April; the baseline number was not disclosed, but as of July 7 numbers stand at 15 million. Facebook reached 1.7 million more people; as of July 7, the agency has 28 million followers on that platform.

The Artemis 2 crew during their historic moon mission. (Image credit: NASA) Miscellaneous

NASA also highlighted a selection of its campaigns before and during the mission to engage the public's interest but released few metrics about how these contributed to overall viewership and engagement.

The moon-mascot campaign: Thousands of people from 50 countries contributed ideas for a zero-gravity indicator for Artemis II, which ultimately ended up being "Rise" from eight-year-old Lucas Ye.

Sending public names to the moon: Rise carried an SD card containing 5.6 million names submitted, from individuals around the world, to fly around the moon.

Other partnerships: Artemis II was also highlighted on a Google Doodle on April 1, a Spotify playlist that featured the crew's wakeup songs, and on Merriam-Webster's Facebook page.

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The two major earthquakes that struck Venezuela just 39 seconds apart on June 24 had slightly different epicenters in north-central Venezuela. The first (M7.2) struck near San Felipe, and the second (M7.5) near Yumare, leaving thousands dead and thousands more injured, according to government officials . But beyond the devastation, the sequence opened a rare scientific opportunity: Researchers think the unusual "earthquake doublet" could offer new insight into how large fault systems interact and how some of the most destructive earthquakes grow.

Large earthquakes are typically followed by smaller aftershocks. But particularly intense events can also alter stress on nearby faults ‪or along the same fault, ‪triggering another major earthquake.

These scenarios are infrequent but not unprecedented. The 2023 sequence in Kahramanmaraş, Turkey , and the 1997 earthquake doublet in Harnai, Pakistan , are two well-known examples.

The Venezuelan sequence also reinforces an emerging consensus among seismologists: that treating faults as isolated structures may underestimate the destructive power of quakes in regions where multiple tectonic faults meet, as they do both in Venezuela and around California's San Andreas Fault system. That's a problem, because many of the seismic hazard models in California do not account for those multi-fault interactions.

A natural laboratory for understanding major earthquakes

The fault system involved in the Venezuelan earthquake ‪—‬ which includes the Boconó, Morón, San Sebastián and El Pilar faults ‪—‬ shares several key characteristics with the San Andreas Fault. Both are right-lateral strike-slip fault systems ‪—‬ in which the crustal blocks slide horizontally past each other ‪—‬ located along the boundary between two tectonic plates: the South American and Caribbean plates in Venezuela, and the Pacific and North American plates in California.

Despite these similarities, researchers caution that the two systems differ in important ways.

"The main difference is that the Venezuelan plate boundary has a much more complex fault architecture," Julián García Mayordomo , a senior scientist in the Geological Hazards and Climate Change Department at the Geological and Mining Institute of Spain, told Live Science.

The difference stems largely from the Maracaibo block, whose interaction with surrounding faults creates a much more intricate plate boundary than California's.

"The other difference is the speed at which the plates move," García Mayordomo pointed out.

In Venezuela, the tectonic plates move past each other at about 0.8 inches (20 millimeters) per year, compared with roughly 1.2 inches (30 millimeters) along the San Andreas Fault. Faster plate motion allows tectonic stress to accumulate more quickly, which influences how often large earthquakes occur over long timescales, but not when the next one will strike.

An aerial view of the San Andreas Fault in California. (Image credit: Kevin Schafer/Getty Images) Along the San Andreas Fault, magnitude 7 or larger earthquakes occur, on average every 100 to 200 years , although the frequency of recurrence varies along the fault. The last major rupture in Southern California was the magnitude 7.9 Fort Tejon earthquake in 1857. In Venezuela, estimated slip rates suggest recurrence intervals of one to two centuries. The region experienced two devastating earthquakes in 1812, part of a multiple-rupture sequence that included events of magnitude 7.5, 7.2 and 6.5 , and a 2018 study concluded that the Boconó Fault had already accumulated enough strain to generate another major earthquake.

However, these are statistical averages. The recurrence of large earthquakes is highly irregular and depends on a multitude of factors, many of which we still don't fully understand. So a major event could occur in 100 years ‪—‬ or even tomorrow.

Looking beyond individual faults

This uncertainty is precisely one of the reasons the Venezuelan seismic doublet is generating so much interest among seismologists.

"It is the kind of natural event that can sharpen and test the rupture-interaction concepts that paleoseismic models like ours can only infer indirectly," said Liliane Burkhard , a geologist and geophysicist at the University of Bern and first author of a recent study suggesting that the junction between the San Andreas and San Jacinto faults in Southern California is experiencing some of its highest tectonic stress levels in the past 1,000 years , told Live Science.

"Our Cajon Pass work relied on centuries of paleoseismic reconstructions to infer how stress evolves and whether ruptures can cross between fault systems," Burkhard told Live Science. But that doesn't give geologists real-time data, captured by seismic instruments, showing how different faults interact during quakes, she added.

The Venezuela doublet offers exactly that opportunity. The main lesson for California, Burkhard said, is that interactions between neighboring faults can play an important role in the evolution of large earthquakes.

"Whether it is Cajon Pass where the San Andreas and San Jacinto systems meet or the Boconó-San Sebastián in Venezuela, these are precisely the locations where single-fault hazard models break down because the real behavior depends on how stress is shared and transferred between adjacent structures," she said.

Many times the winner isn't the boxer who lands the hardest punch but the one who keeps punching for longer.

Julián García Mayordomo, senior scientist at the Geological and Mining Institute

Still, the two systems are quite different. The Venezuelan sequence represents a different type of cascading rupture than the one described in Burkhard's research. At Cajon Pass, the "earthquake gate" concept explores whether a single rupture can jump from one fault system to another during the same earthquake, over tens of seconds of rupture propagation along a continuous fault trace. The Venezuelan doublet, by contrast, "looks like two distinct ruptures on what may be two separate fault structures, triggered in close succession," Burkhard said.

For Burkhard, the Venezuelan earthquake reinforces the need for seismic hazard models to move beyond treating faults as isolated structures and instead represent them as interconnected networks. The challenge is particularly relevant in California, where roughly 300 active faults may interact in ways that traditional hazard models do not capture.

New Zealand has already incorporated this lesson. After the 2016 Kaikōura earthquake ruptured at least 12 faults in a single event, New Zealand revised its National Seismic Hazard Model to include complex multifault ruptures.

García Mayordomo argues that both Venezuela and the United States should incorporate these complex rupture scenarios into seismic hazard assessments and building codes. Earthquakes involving multiple faults can produce longer-lasting shaking that increases structural fatigue and, ultimately, the risk of collapse.

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"It's like a boxing match," García Mayordomo said. "Many times the winner isn't the boxer who lands the hardest punch but the one who keeps punching for longer."

Even so, researchers cautioned against drawing sweeping conclusions from a single earthquake.

"Each earthquake gives us one possible scenario," Judith Hubbard , an earthquake scientist and structural geologist at Cornell University told Live Science. "The range of earthquake behaviors is wide."