An American billionaire has become the first person to take part in a private spacewalk – against the spectacular backdrop of the Earth.

A spacewalk is considered one of the most dangerous activities an astronaut can do in orbit.

SpaceX Polaris Dawn spacewalk – live updates

It was delayed by around four hours earlier this morning – with no explanation given – before final safety checks of the spacesuits and equipment were carried out and SpaceX officials confirmed the mission was “go for a spacewalk”.

First images broadcast from inside the Dragon capsule showed the four-strong crew preparing for the historic event – and sharing fist bumps with each other.

Billionaire Jared Isaacman, 41, was the first to exit the capsule – joining a small, elite group of spacewalkers who until today had included only professional astronauts.

After opening the hatch, a body camera showed his ascent through the narrow opening before incredible footage showed the spacewalk taking place to huge cheers from mission control at Cape Canaveral in Florida.

“It’s gorgeous,” he said, in awe of what he could see, as he eased out of the spacecraft into the vacuum of space, hundreds of miles from Earth.

He kept a hand or foot attached to the capsule the whole time as he flexed his arms and legs to see how the new spacesuit held up.

“The handsfree demonstration is very comparable to the trainer, in terms of the foot restraint,” he added, as he tested his spacesuit.

He had said before lift-off earlier this week: “Whatever risk is associated with it, it is worth it.”

“I wasn’t alive when humans walked on the moon,” he said.

“I’d certainly like my kids to see humans walking on the moon and Mars, and venturing out and exploring our solar system.”

The tech entrepreneur blasted into space from Florida before dawn on board a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on Tuesday for the five-day flight – along with mission pilot Scott Poteet, 50, a retired US Air Force lieutenant colonel, and SpaceX employees Sarah Gillis, 30, and Anna Menon, 38, both senior engineers at the company.

Ms Gillis followed Mr Isaacman out of the capsule on Thursday to carry out the same mobility tests.

They each had 12ft (3.6m) tethers but did not unfurl them, and instead bobbed up and down in weightlessness, no higher than their knees out of the capsule.

The mission, called Polaris Dawn, to test a new line of spacesuits is the Elon Musk-led company’s riskiest mission yet – from a space capsule that doesn’t have a safety airlock, and in suits far slimmer than the bulky protective layers worn by NASA astronauts.

It is the first of three funded by Mr Isaacman – a pilot and the founder of electronic payment company Shift4.

He has refused to say how much he is paying for the missions, but they are believed to have cost hundreds of millions of dollars based on Crew Dragon’s roughly $55m (£42m) per-seat price for other flights.

Ms Gillis could be heard saying “pretty good” as she carried out her spacewalk – before she followed Mr Isaacman back into the capsule, after being told what sounded like she had less than six minutes of oxygen supply left.

“Pressure indicates good seal,” mission control told the astronauts, reassuringly, as the hatch was shut again.

“That was really cool,” said one of the presenters on the SpaceX live stream.

Mr Menon and Mr Poteet remained inside the spacecraft during the spacewalk.

Polaris Dawn was planned down to the minute with little room for error. The crew spent two-and-a-half years training with SpaceX mission simulations.

There were a few glitches, however – Mr Isaacman had to manually pull the hatch open instead of pushing a button on board, and Ms Gillis reported seeing bulges in the hatch seal.

Only government astronauts with several years of training have done spacewalks in the past.

There have been around 270 on the International Space Station (ISS) since it was set up in 2000, and 16 by Chinese astronauts on Beijing’s Tiangong space station.

The first privately-funded spacewalk was box office from start to finish.

With the air sucked out of the Dragon capsule, and the hatch open to the void of space, we watched as the billionaire bankrolling the Polaris Dawn mission hauled himself outside to reveal planet Earth below.

This was never going to be a zero-gravity ballet on the outside of the capsule.

Jared Isaacman only stood by the door with the safety of handrails never far away and attached by an umbilical cable to his life support systems.

But this was still a significant moment. Up to now only government-funded space agency astronauts have exited a space capsule. Now a commercial operator can do it too.

The whole purpose was to test new SpaceX suits that are being developed for private missions to the Moon and Mars.

So we saw Commander Isaacman twist, turn and move his arms, confirming that he had the mobility that will be needed to work in space.

And in these more enlightened times he was followed by SpaceX employee Sarah Gillis who performed the same checks, confirming that the suit was a good fit for women too.

It’s a much slimmer suit than the puffed-up protective layers worn by astronauts when they venture outside the International Space Station.

And significantly the SpaceX suit can be manufactured at scale. Elon Musk wants thousands made for all the privately-funded astronauts he believes will be heading to Mars in the next few years.

The tests seemed to go well. But a spacewalk is risky and never more so when it’s being done from a space capsule that wasn’t designed to host one.

The Dragon was only ever meant to be de-pressurised to a vacuum in an emergency.

So we saw the crew make do without the normal airlock, the double-doored chamber that seals the ISS from space when astronauts venture outside.

It added even more drama. Even the crew remaining inside, in their seats, had to wear the new suit to stay alive.

You can be sure SpaceX will want to do this again on a future mission.

Elon Musk has said the next generation of suit will be even better, with its own jetpack.

Now that really will be something to watch.

A 17-year-old male has been arrested as part of the investigation into a cyber security incident affecting Transport for London (TfL).

The teenager was detained in Walsall on suspicion of Computer Misuse Act offences in relation to the attack, which was launched on TfL on 1 September.

He has been questioned by officers from the National Crime Agency (NCA) and has been bailed.

It is understood some customer data was compromised, including customer names and contact details.

Some Oyster card refund data may also have been accessed. This could include bank account numbers and sort codes of around 5,000 customers.

The NCA has said it is working alongside TfL and the National Cyber Security Centre to manage the incident and minimise risk to customers.

Paul Foster, head of the NCA’s National Cyber Crime Unit, said: “We have been working at pace to support Transport for London following a cyber attack on their network, and to identify the criminal actors responsible.

“Attacks on public infrastructure such as this can be hugely disruptive and lead to severe consequences for local communities and national systems.

“The swift response by TfL following the incident has enabled us to act quickly, and we are grateful for their continued co-operation with our investigation, which remains ongoing.

“The NCA leads the UK’s response to cybercrime. We work closely with partners to protect the public by ensuring cyber criminals cannot act with impunity, whether that be by bringing them before the courts or through other disruptive and preventative action.”

Providing customers with an update, TfL said on Thursday: “Although there has been very little impact on our customers so far, the situation is evolving and our investigations have identified that certain customer data has been accessed. This includes some customer names and contact details, including email addresses and home addresses where provided.

“Some Oyster card refund data may have also been accessed. This could include bank account numbers and sort codes for a limited number of customers.

“If you are affected, we will contact you directly as soon as possible as a precautionary measure, and will offer you support and guidance.”

TfL said it has now put in place additional measures to improve its security and will provide further updates as soon as possible.

Sharing revenge porn will be upgraded to the most serious type of offence in a change to the Online Safety Act.

It means social media firms must proactively remove such images and take steps to stop them appearing in the first place.

There will large fines for companies that don’t comply.

The government hopes the change, due to come into force in the spring, will drive development of existing and new technologies, such as AI, to help crack down on harmful material.

Technology Secretary Peter Kyle said it would put the onus on firms to “root out” such content.

He said: “Once this becomes a priority offence, social media companies and platforms themselves are going to have to take proactive measures to ensure their algorithms and their systems prevent this content from going live in the first place.

“So that will protect thousands, if not millions, of women in particular, from the degradation, the humiliation and the suffering that goes with this kind of activity.”

The Online Safety Act is a set of laws to shift the responsibility for users’ safety onto social media firms, search engines and others services.

There have been concerns within the Tory Party that it is simply too far-reaching, potentially to the point of threatening free speech online.

technology companies have long expressed concerns about the rules around legal but harmful content, suggesting it would make them unfairly liable for material on their platforms.

The strongest protections are designed to safeguard children and media regulator Ofcom is in charge of enforcement.

The act passed into law in October 2023 and the work is now under way to implement its various protections.

New criminal offences created under its remit came into effect in January 2024.

These cover intimate image abuse (revenge porn); encouraging or assisting serious self-harm; cyberflashing; sending false information intended to cause non-trivial harm; threatening communications; and epilepsy trolling.

The technology secretary also said he is looking at strengthening misinformation laws after the recent UK riots, which were fuelled by false claims about the Southport attacker.

“I’m looking really closely at the role that online activity had in that period, and I want to make sure, as in every other area, including what we’re talking about today, that we’re fit for the future,” he said.

Warning: This story contains offensive language, including antisemitic content.

The rant by Adolf Hitler is full of antisemitic vitriol, saying that Jewish people are working to undermine peace in Europe.

What’s unusual is the fast-paced music laid on top, and the fact that the combined audio is available on more than 100 posts on TikTok – and is attracting likes.

Sky News has found Nazi speeches and marching music have been turned into popular ‘sounds’ (audio used as the basis for multiple videos) on TikTok and are being used as soundtracks on at least 72,534 posts.

Videos using these sounds have attracted high levels of engagement on the platform, with some receiving millions of likes from TikTok users.

Examples include one post blaming Jewish people for the ‘Islamisation of Europe’, and another that contains the text “by mixing white with black, white disappears” next to a stock image of an interracial couple.

Nazi speeches

Searching TikTok between 2-3 September revealed 50,023 posts using sounds incorporating speeches from Nazis including Adolf Hitler and his chief propagandist Joseph Goebbels.

To appeal to a wider audience, most of the speeches are set to a type of music popular on TikTok called Drift Phonk – without the creators’ permission or knowledge.

One post, which shows an image of a Nuremberg Rally accompanied by a Hitler speech, has been liked by more than 56,700 users.

In a comment that has been liked 1,695 times, one user states “modern society absolutely needs him.” Another says, “we miss you”.

The most popular sound made using a Hitler speech viewed by Sky News has been used in over 10,300 videos.

Contacted by Sky News, an artist called Pastel Ghost whose music was repurposed to make Nazi content without her knowledge, said: “I was not previously aware that my music was being used in this way and I find it shocking and deplorable.

“My team and I are actively scouring TikTok and other platforms to take down all instances like this where my work is being used to promote hateful ideology.”

Hannah Rose, hate and extremism analyst at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, told Sky News: “It’s quite shocking but it’s not particularly surprising. We know and we have known for a number of years that platforms have not adequately moderated the scale of hatred and extremist content on their platforms, which means that content such as Hitler speeches, such as antisemitic content, is across not only fringe things, but mainstream platforms as well.”

Sky News forwarded the videos we found to TikTok.

A spokesperson said: “This content was immediately removed for breaching our strict policies against hate speech. We regularly train our safety professionals and update our safeguards to detect hateful behaviour on an ongoing basis, and we remove 91% of this type of content before it is reported to us.”

Erika

A further 22,511 posts were found using sounds based on the German marching song ‘Erika.’

While Erika does not have explicitly political lyrics, it has strong associations with the Nazi party, and German military during the Second World War.

Its composer, Herms Niel, joined the Nazi party in 1933. He wrote numerous songs for the military, including the SS, and served as conductor at the Nazi party’s Nuremberg rallies.

The content of the posts using this sound often makes it clear it has been selected because of these associations, with many including images of Hitler and swastikas.

The images attached to the sounds when clicked and displayed on search results also heavily suggest the users are aware of this connection.

One version of Erika, attached to 405 videos, is labelled with a picture of a grinning skeleton resembling Hitler in front of a German flag.

Another recording of the song, used on 8,845 videos, is attached to an edited black-and-white photograph of Hitler.

Erika attracted widespread attention in the UK earlier this year. In June, the University of Warwick’s Conservative Association faced criticism after attendees of a dinner hosted by the organisation were filmed dancing and singing along to the song.

At the time, the University of Warwick Conservatives Association issued a statement, saying it “wholeheartedly condemns the behaviour exhibited during this video and apologises for any offence that has been caused”. The person who could be heard “actively singing lyrics” and several others involved were barred from future events.

High levels of engagement

To assess the popularity of posts using this audio, Sky News looked at the five most used sounds made from Nazi speeches and recorded the engagement on the 10 most popular posts using each one.

These 50 posts had a combined total of over 13.7 million likes.

When taken together, the posts with the most engagement on the top five Erika sounds had over 7.8 million likes.

The most liked post in these samples had over 2.5 million likes. It includes a recording of Hitler.

In total, videos using audio of Nazi speeches and recordings of Erika had over 21 million likes.

Sounds are a challenge for moderators

In August, Sky News reported that TikTok’s ‘sounds feature’ was being used by ISIS supporters, with thousands of videos attached to audio produced by the group’s internal media arm.

These sounds present a similar challenge for TikTok’s moderators.

Most of the sounds using Nazi-related audio do not have explicit titles. However, when clicked on they instantly direct users to large numbers of posts using the same soundtrack.

In this way, users link extreme content easily while minimising their exposure to moderation.

Congregating under the radar

Dr Joe Ondrak, research, technology and policy lead at Logically, a company that monitors harmful online content, told Sky News social media users have known for a long time that audio content is harder for the platform to moderate.

On the harmful nature of this content, Dr Ondrak said “people are rightly worried about exposing new audiences to this and them going down the rabbit hole”.

“I think the real function of content like this is more to round up the people that already understand the language.”

“For those who already speak that language, this is a way to – under the radar – congregate.”

On why the genre phonk has been adopted by people remixing Hitler speeches, Ondrak noted that communities of social media users adapt the musical styles they use as different genres and memes gain popularity.

The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling, we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.

A Second World War project which involved training pigeons to pilot bombs has won this year’s spoof Nobel peace prize.

The Ig Nobel gongs – awarded annually by the science humour magazine the Annals of Improbable Research – celebrate unusual areas of research that “make people laugh, then think”.

Professor Burrhus Frederic Skinner, a psychologist at the University of Minnesota in the US, received the posthumous gong for his work on Project Pigeon, where he was able to teach pigeons to guide missiles with some success.

But the project never took flight because of scepticism from the US military and government officials.

However, Prof Skinner stood by the research, writing in a summary of the project published in 1960: “Call it a crackpot idea if you will. It is one in which I have never lost faith.”

The anatomy prize went to a team of scientists in France who wanted to investigate whether hair on the heads of most people in the Northern Hemisphere swirled in the same direction – clockwise or anticlockwise – as those from the Southern Hemisphere.

The chemistry award was won by a research team who used a lab technique to separate drunk and sober worms.

And US-based scientists Fordyce Ely and William E Petersen were awarded the biology prize for exploding a paper bag next to a cat standing on the back of a cow with aim to understand more about how and when cows spew their milk.

The two found that cows temporarily stopped ejecting milk when frightened.

Other awards presented at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston, US, on Thursday, included the physiology prize for discovering that many mammals are capable of breathing through their anus and the physics prize for demonstrating the swimming abilities of a dead trout.

Meanwhile, the demography gong went to Dr Saul Justin Newman, senior research fellow at University College London, who discovered some people with the longest lives hailed from places that had poor recordkeeping.

Dr Newman said he became interested in investigating data on humans who live longer than most after debunking two scientific papers about extreme human ageing.

A mega-tsunami caused by a landslide in Greenland caused the Earth to vibrate for nine days, a new study has shown.

The collapse of a 1.2km-high (0.7 miles) mountain peak last September caused water in the fjord below to splash back and forth, causing vibrations right through to the Earth’s crust, researchers found.

It was caused by the glacier at the foot of the mountain thinning, which was the result of climate change, according to the study, which included scientists from University College London (UCL).

The new phenomenon, which began above Dickson Fjord in east Greenland, left scientists “completely baffled”, the study’s co-author Dr Stephen Hicks said.

“This is the first time that water sloshing has been recorded as vibrations through the Earth’s crust, travelling the world over and lasting several days,” Dr Hicks, of UCL Earth Sciences, said.

“Even though we know seismometers can record a variety of sources happening on Earth’s surface, never before has such a long-lasting, globally travelling seismic wave, containing only a single frequency of oscillation, been recorded.

“Our study of this event amazingly highlights the intricate interconnections between climate change in the atmosphere, destabilisation of glacier ice in the cryosphere, movements of water bodies in the hydrosphere, and Earth’s solid crust in the lithosphere.”

To demonstrate how the water splashing continued for nine days, researchers recreated the angle of the landslide using a mathematical model.

It suggests that the water would have splashed back and forth every 90 seconds, sending vibrations through the Earth’s crust around the planet, causing one of the largest tsunamis in recent history.

The wave extended 10km (7.4 miles) across the fjord and 110m into the air – but reduced to 7m within minutes, the study, published in the journal Science, estimates.