A European space telescope has blasted off on a quest to explore the mysterious and invisible realm known as the dark universe.

SpaceX launched the European Space Agency's Euclid observatory toward its ultimate destination 1.5 million kilometres away, the Webb Space Telescope's neighbourhood.

It will take a month to get there and another two months before it starts its ambitious six-year survey this fall.

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Flight controllers in Germany declared success nearly an hour into the flight, applauding and shouting "Yes!" as the telescope phoned home after a smooth liftoff.

"I'm so thrilled, I'm so excited to see now this mission up in space, knowing it is on its way," the European Space Agency's director general, Josef Aschbacher, said from the Florida launch site.

Named for antiquity's Greek mathematician, Euclid will scour billions of galaxies covering more than one-third of the sky.

By pinpointing the location and shape of galaxies up to 10 billion light-years away — almost all the way back to the cosmos-creating Big Bang — scientists hope to glean insight into the dark energy and dark matter that make up most of the universe and keep it expanding.

Scientists understand only 5 per cent of the universe: stars, planets, us.

The rest is "still a mystery and an enigma, a huge frontier in modern physics that we hope this mission will actually help to push forward," the European Space Agency's science director, Carole Mundell, said just before liftoff.

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The telescope's highly anticipated 3D map of the cosmos will span both space and time in a bid to explain how the dark universe evolved and why its expansion is speeding up.

The lead scientist for the $2.2 billion mission said Euclid will measure dark energy and dark matter with unprecedented precision.

"It's more than a space telescope, Euclid. It's really a dark energy detector," Rene Laureijs noted.

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At 4.7 metres tall and almost as wide, Euclid sports a 1.2-metre telescope and two scientific instruments capable of observing the cosmos in both visible light and the near infrared.

A huge sunshield is designed to keep the sensitive systems at the properly frigid temperatures.

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NASA, which contributed Euclid's infrared detectors, has its own mission coming up to better understand dark energy and dark matter: the Roman Space Telescope due to launch in 2027.

The US-European Webb telescope can also join in this quest, officials said.

Euclid was supposed to launch on a Russian rocket from French Guiana in South America, Europe's main spaceport.

The European and Russian space agencies cut ties following the invasion of Ukraine last year, and the telescope switched to a SpaceX ride from Cape Canaveral. Waiting for Europe's next-generation, yet-to-fly Ariane rocket would have meant a two-year-plus delay, according to project manager Giuseppe Racca.

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It has been a cold and wet start to July for most of the country as a large cloud band intensifies over central Australia.

The unseasonable system is bringing low temperatures, heavy rainfall and possible flooding to outback areas of Western Australia, Northern Territory and South Australia.

The heaviest falls are expected around Queensland's north-west.

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The cold weather will continue into next week as the cloud band forms a "deep upper trough" and moves across the interior to the east.

Cold maximum temperatures 10-15 degrees below average are expected in western Queensland and New South Wales.

It comes as Alice Springs rounded out the last month of June with a maximum temperature of just 8.7 degrees on Friday, the coldest day of any month since 2014 and 11 degrees below average.

The cloud band is also bringing "unseasonal rain" across the north, Weatherzone said.

Melbourne can expect a slight shower today, with a top of 14 degrees.

Sydney is expected to reach 17 degrees, Brisbane 22, Perth 19, Hobart 14, Canberra 14 and Darwin 31.

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People living in these suburbs around Australia could lose their jobs to artificial intelligence in the coming years as automation takes hold of workplaces.

Trekking through the cloud-crowned, snow-capped peak of Gora Dykh-Tau in Russia, Jenn Drummond felt the electric storm swirling around her, but she couldn't see it.

At this point, the mother-of-seven from Utah was no stranger to the danger of mountains, with this 5205-metre giant of stone and ice the third on her list to climb.

She was on a daring quest to set a Guinness World Record.

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But as attuned to risk as Drummond was, the raw elements of the fierce peak surprised her.

"I thought an electrical storm you always saw, that you would see the electricity," Drummond told 9news.com.au. 

"You didn't. You were in it. You would hear it and all of a sudden your ice axe on your back would get really really hot and you would have to take it out and throw it to break the connection.

"That was scary. I didn't even have that fear on K2, the fear on K2 was whether someone would knock a rock down ahead of me.

"The fear on Dykh-Tau was would there be an avalanche, am I going to get struck by lightning, is my partner going to fall so we're both in trouble?

"There's cliffy-edges."

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Drummond, who is now 43, said part of the mountain's volatility rises from the fact it lies between two seas.

"It gets a ton of snow and moisture," she said.

"On Dykh-Tau you can trigger so many avalanches, so you have to watch the ridge line the entire time."

The mother's efforts and perseverance paid off and she managed to summit the elemental peak during that September 2021 climb.

And so another mountain was ticked off her list. 

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Drummond this year became the first and only woman to conquer all Seven Second Summits, the second-highest mountains on Earth.

The list of respected peaks includes Mount Logan in Canada; Mount Townsend in Australia; K2 in Pakistan, widely regarded as the most difficult mountain to climb; Mount Tyree in Antarctica; Gora Dykh-Tau in Russia; Mount Kenya in Kenya; and Ojos del Salado in Chile.

So how did the mission come into being?

The car crash and a blonde joke

Drummond's life changed after surviving a "horrific" car accident in 2018.

"It should have taken my life but it didn't, and we don't know how," she said.

"I walked away and was like, 'Oh my goodness, I don't get to choose when I leave this world but I sure get to choose how I live.'"

The mother started soul-searching all through 2019, filing through all the things she hadn't done but still wanted to.

As her 40th birthday rapidly approached, she set her sights on climbing a mountain called Ama Dablam in Nepal – but that plan quickly derailed.

"Then COVID hits and all of a sudden I'm a home-school teacher," she said. 

"And my son is struggling with maths, and I'm like, 'Listen buddy, we all do hard things, you have got this' and he turned around and replied, 'If we're doing hard things, why are you climbing a mountain called I'm A Dumb Blonde instead of a real mountain like Everest?'

"That wordplay was rather cute, so I said, 'Ok, you finish your homework and we'll look at Everest.'"

And look at Everest they did: Drummond started training and even hired a coach.

"He had me read a book and at the front, someone had set a Guinness World Record for skiing across the Alps or something.

"Half-joking I said, 'I could have done that, I can suffer and if I got a Guinness World Record, my kids would think I'm so cool.'

"He promised to find one for me."

Two months later, she got a call from her coach with the "perfect fit": the Seven Second Summits.

"He said, 'You have seven children, seven continents, seven mountains – it sounds like a jackpot'," she recalls.

"And that's how it all came about."

How the mission played out

Drummond managed to climb all seven peaks in an impressive two and a half years, while somehow also navigating COVID-19 border closures. 

And in between all that, she managed to also tackle Everest, the world's highest mountain.

She said of all the peaks tackled, Mount Logan in Canada was by far the most difficult.

Ultimately, it would take two attempts to summit the 5956-metre peak because during the first, in May 2022, her team was "pulled from the mountain" due to bad weather.

But in June of this year, she managed to tick the granodiorite behemoth off her list, and in doing so set her record.

But she said this climb wasn't without its challenges.

It was unbearably cold, reaching -54 degrees, the coldest temperature of any of Drummond's climbs.

"It's so hard," she said.

"You are dropped off on a glacier, you have to ski up it as that's the fastest way and you're carrying all your stuff, on backpack and sleds, and there's no real trail, you have to figure out how to go around crevasses.

"It's also super windy, visibility isn't the best and you can't move on that mountain without it because you would get lost super easy.

"It's not technically hard, it's just the weather constantly reminds you to go home."

But one of the most surprising climbs occurred on Australia's soil in November 2022.

"I had a bit of an ego," she said, adding she didn't wait for the Thredbo's chairlift to open when she took on Mount Townsend in the NSW's Snowy Mountains.

"We hiked to Kosciuszko and did that one first because it's on the way to Mount Townsend.

"It's all a path, super well-maintained, so I'm thinking we're going to have a fantastic day.

"Then the weather started to turn.

"There was still snow there, which wasn't supposed to happen.

"So there was no path there and it was full of snow. I wasn't anticipating the level of snow.

"For the last mile up and mile back, we were post-holing, so the snow was starting to rot underneath the top level, you would step through and you would fall through up to your thigh – each step was huge and heavy.

"It was the hardest, easiest mountain I've ever climbed."

Drummond hopes her story will help inspire others to climb their own mountains, whether it be "metaphorical or literal".

"I just want to help others have the courage to continue when they want to turn around," she said. 

"One of the lessons I learned is you can go so much longer than you think you can.

"We have this huge universe of so many cool environments and different places to see and as humans, we get the opportunity to do that.

"So explore, experiment, and try it, the journey is where the reward is. 

"'I'm so grateful for the entire experience."

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A humpback whale has died despite desperate attempts to save it after it became stranded on a NSW beach.

The whale was discovered at Seven Mile Beach, Lennox Head.

Teams from National Parks and Wildlife Service, Sea World and ORRCA (Organisation for the Rescue and Research of Cetaceans in Australia) were involved in trying to save the mammal.

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NPWS had asked members of the public to keep away for their safety.

It was hoped a high tide about 5pm would give crews a chance to refloat the whale.

However, the animal was unable to be saved.

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Rioting has raged in cities around France for a fourth night despite massive police deployment, with cars and buildings set ablaze and stores looted, as family and friends prepared on Saturday to bury the 17-year-old whose killing by police unleashed the unrest.

The government suggested the violence was beginning to lessen thanks to tougher security measures, but damages remained widespread, from Paris to Marseille and Lyon and French territories overseas, where a 54-year-old died after being hit by a stray bullet in French Guiana.

The interior ministry announced 994 arrests around France by early Saturday.

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France's national soccer team – including international star Kylian Mbappe, an idol to many young people in the disadvantaged neighbourhoods where the anger is rooted – pleaded for an end to the violence.

"Many of us are from working-class neighbourhoods, we too share this feeling of pain and sadness" over the killing of 17-year-old Nahel, the players said in a statement.

"Violence resolves nothing. … There are other peaceful and constructive ways to express yourself."

They said it's time for "mourning, dialogue and reconstruction" instead.

The fatal shooting of Nahel, whose last name has not been made public, stirred up long-simmering tensions between police and young people in housing projects who struggle with poverty, unemployment and racial discrimination.

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The subsequent rioting is the worst France has seen in years and puts new pressure on President Emmanuel Macron, who appealed to parents to keep children off the streets and blamed social media for fuelling violence.

Family and friends were holding a funeral gathering on Saturday for Nahel in his hometown of Nanterre. Anger erupted in the Paris suburb after his death there Tuesday and quickly spread nationwide.

Early on Saturday, firefighters in Nanterre extinguished blazes set by protesters that left scorched remains of cars strewn across the streets. In the neighbouring suburb of Colombes, protesters overturned garbage bins and used them for makeshift barricades.

Looters during the evening broke into a gun shop and made off with weapons in the Mediterranean port city of Marseille, police said. Officers in Marseille arrested nearly 90 people as groups of protesters lit cars on fire and broke store windows to take what was inside.

READ MORE: French president urges parents to keep teens at home, faults social media as rioting spreads

Buildings and businesses were also vandalised in the eastern city of Lyon, where a third of the roughly 30 arrests made were for theft, police said. Authorities reported fires in the streets after an unauthorized protest drew more than 1000 people earlier on Friday evening.

The Interior Ministry said 994 arrests were made during the night, with more than 2500 fires. The night before, 917 people were arrested nationwide, 500 buildings targeted, 2000 vehicles burned and dozens of stores ransacked.

While the number of overnight arrests was the highest yet, there were fewer fires, cars burned and police stations attacked around France than the previous night, according to the Interior Ministry. Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin claimed the violence was of "much less intensity".

Hundreds of police and firefighters have been injured, including 79 overnight, but authorities have not released injury tallies for protesters.

Nanterre Mayor Patrick Jarry said France needs to "push for changes" in disadvantaged neighbourhoods.

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Despite repeated government appeals for calm and stiffer policing, Friday saw brazen daylight violence, too.

An Apple store was looted in the eastern city of Strasbourg, where police fired tear gas, and the windows of a fast-food outlet were smashed in a Paris-area shopping mall, where officers repelled people trying to break into a shuttered store, authorities said.

In the face of the escalating crisis that hundreds of arrests and massive police deployments have failed to quell, Macron held off on declaring a state of emergency, an option that was used in similar circumstances in 2005.

Instead, his government ratcheted up its law enforcement response, with 45,000 police deployed overnight. Some were called back from vacation.

Darmanin ordered a nationwide nighttime shutdown on Friday of all public buses and trams, which have been among rioters' targets. He also said he warned social networks not to allow themselves to be used as channels for calls to violence.

"They were very cooperative," Darmanin said, adding that French authorities were providing the platforms with information in hopes of cooperation in identifying people inciting violence.

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"We will pursue every person who uses these social networks to commit violent acts," he said.

Macron, too, zeroed in on social media platforms that have relayed dramatic images of vandalism and cars and buildings being torched.

Singling out Snapchat and TikTok, he said they were being used to organise unrest and served as conduits for copycat violence.

The violence comes just over a year before Paris and other French cities are due to host 10,500 Olympians and millions of visitors for the Summer Olympic Games. Organisers said they are closely monitoring the situation as preparations for the Olympics continue.

The police officer accused of killing Nahel was handed a preliminary charge of voluntary homicide.

Preliminary charges mean investigating magistrates strongly suspect wrongdoing but need to investigate more before sending a case to trial.

Nanterre prosecutor Pascal Prache said his initial investigation led him to conclude that the officer's use of his weapon wasn't legally justified.

Nahel's mother, identified as Mounia M, told France 5 television that she was angry at the officer but not at the police in general.

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"He saw a little Arab-looking kid, he wanted to take his life," she said.

"A police officer cannot take his gun and fire at our children, take our children's lives," she said. The family has roots in Algeria.

Race was a taboo topic for decades in France, which is officially committed to a doctrine of colourblind universalism. In the wake of Nahel's killing, French anti-racism activists renewed complaints about police behaviour.

Thirteen people who didn't comply with traffic stops were fatally shot by French police last year.

This year, another three people, including Nahel, died under similar circumstances. The deaths have prompted demands for more accountability in France, which also saw racial justice protests after George Floyd's killing by police in Minnesota.

This week's protests echoed the three weeks of rioting in 2005 that followed the deaths of 15-year-old Bouna Traoré and 17-year-old Zyed Benna, who were electrocuted while hiding from police in a power substation in Clichy-sous-Bois.

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Australia has become the first country to classify psychedelics as medicines.

Documents shared exclusively with CNN suggest that a top Russian military commander, General Sergey Surovikin, was a secret VIP member of Wagner, the private military company that staged a brief rebellion exposing disunity among senior Russian military officials.

The documents, obtained by the Russian Investigative Dossier Center, showed that Surovikin had been assigned a personal VIP Wagner registration number in 2018.

Surovikin is listed along with at least 30 other senior Russian military and intelligence officials, who the Dossier Center said are also VIP Wagner members.

READ MORE: After the short-lived insurrection, questions swirl over top Russian commander and Prigozhin

The identities of those officials have not been revealed.

There is no evidence that Surovikin was on Wagner's payroll but the VIP membership for so many senior figures implies an overly close relationship between the Russian military and the mercenary group.

Wagner has not answered CNN's request for a response.

This suspicion of divided loyalty between Wagner and the Russian military, which could have played a role in allowing the group's fighters to take a key base in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don with little resistance, may fuel a purge of top military leaders.

Surovikin has not been seen in public since last Saturday (local time), when he released a video in which he held a machine gun and nervously pleaded for Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin to stop his insurrection.

His whereabouts are unknown since then.

The New York Times reported the Russian general "had advance knowledge" of Prigozhin's revolt, which represented the most serious challenge to President Vladimir Putin's tenure in his 23 years in power.

READ MORE: After short-lived insurrection, questions swirl over top Russian commanders

Surovkin called on Prigozhin to stop the rebellion soon after it began but he appeared to be stammering as though reading from a script, prompting speculation about his state of mind.

Prigozhin was last spotted leaving Rostov-on-Don on Saturday, after abruptly calling off his troops' march on Moscow.

He released an audio message on Monday, explaining his decision to turn his troops back.

The Kremlin and the Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said on Saturday that Prigozhin agreed to leave Russia for Belarus, although there has been no verifiable confirmation of his arrival.

After a weekend of chaos, Putin tried to reassert his authority in a display of unity, making rare public appearances and telling his troops they "stopped a civil war" by refusing to join with Wagner fighters.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov rejected suggestions that Wagner's failed mutiny jeopardised Putin's grip on power, saying Prigozhin's abrupt withdrawal demonstrated "the level of unity within society around the president."

Surovikin – nicknamed General Armageddon for his ruthless tactics – has been a trusted Kremlin military commander, who oversaw Russian military campaigns in Syria and Ukraine.

But there are now questions in Russia over whether the Kremlin trusts him still.

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Anthony Albanese believes Australians will welcome the news that the federal accounts are in a surplus almost five times greater than what was predicted on budget night, even as households around the country struggle with the rising cost of living.

Federal Department of Finance Records released yesterday show the budget surplus has grown to $19 billion by the end of May, a significant increase on the $4.2 billion figure unveiled by Treasurer Jim Chalmers on budget night.

Australia's largest ever surplus was $19.8 billion in 2007-08.

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Speaking in Sydney on Saturday, the prime minister said that strong economic position will help relieve inflation.

"That's a result of this government's responsible economic management," Albanese said.

"The fact that we've turned a $78 billion deficit that was forecast under the Liberal National Party government just over a year ago into a surplus that's in excess of $4 billion is a positive thing.

"It will take pressure off inflation. And the government's been determined to do that."

When pressed about the disparity of the huge boost to the Commonwealth's bottom line while households struggle with the cost of living crisis, Albanese pointed to a range of relief policies unveiled in the budget that came into effect today.

"We understand that families are under cost-of-living pressure," he said.

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"But these measures will make a real difference. $3 billion, together with states and territories, on energy price relief, the cheaper child care for 1.2 million families, the additional support for people to get into homeownership… increased paid parental leave, cheaper medicines.

"All of these will make a difference on cost-of-living pressures for families."

The opposition, however, has criticised the government for not doing enough to address increasing power prices, with electricity costs rising across the country from today.

"Australians will be paying the highest power prices they've ever seen," Shadow Energy Minister Ted O'Brien said.

However, Albanese defended his government's policies, again pointing to the energy price relief plan.

"I believe that Australian families will look at the federal budget and say it is good that we have a government that is putting in place responsible budget management in order to put that downward pressure on inflation," he said.

"They know that responsible economic policy from the federal government is important and has a flow-on impact that is positive for families…

"Our energy price relief plan alone will produce a three-quarters-of-a-percentage drop in inflation."

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Noise control, mowing and libraries are some of the areas where there will be cuts.