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People landed on the moon during NASA’s Apollo program in the late 1960s and 1970s using computers with far less processing power than today’s smartphones.
Still, even five decades later, landing on the moon is far from easy.
That point has been proven by several notable missions in recent years: Israel’s Beresheet spacecraft entered the ancient lunar volcanic field called the Sea of Serenity in 2019, and last year, the Russian Luna-25 mission and a commercial Japanese lander called Hakuto -R both. smashed into the surface of the moon. (India, however, claimed to be the fourth country to land a spacecraft on the moon.)
Whether successful or not, the efforts are part of a new space race in which the push for lunar exploration takes center stage. A number of projects are expected to head for the moon this year with sights set on a soft landing.
The first to fly – a commercial mission from the United States – has not gone as planned.
Explorations
Astrobotic Technology, the Pittsburgh-based company – under a $108 million contract with NASA – that developed the first US lunar lander to launch in five decades, has abandoned plans to attempt a soft landing for his Falcon One Mission to the moon.
The spacecraft successfully lifted off on Monday atop a Vulcan Centaur rocket, a new vehicle developed by United Launch Alliance that was on its maiden flight. Soon after, Falcon suffered a “critical” loss of propulsion due to a fuel leak, meaning a controlled lunar landing, originally slated for February 23, is off the table, according to Astrobotic.
NASA had hoped that Peregrine 1 would be an early success of its Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, which aims to reduce the cost of building a lunar lander – especially as the space agency faces delays long for astronauts to return to the moon.
Discoveries
Northern Europeans are among the most at risk of the debilitating autoimmune disease multiple sclerosis, and a new study based on DNA recovered from ancient bones and teeth has provided clues as to why.
A comparison of more than 1,000 ancient genomes, compiled as part of a new database, found a link between multiple sclerosis risk and shared ancestry with a group of nomadic Bronze Age herders known as the Yamnaya.
Researchers believe that these nomads, originally from central Europe, moved back and introduced a genetic variant that protected against infectious pathogens carried by domesticated animals but evolved to affect modern diseases in the manner of the -different.
Dig this
What caused the extinction of the greatest apes that ever lived?
New research published this week has shed more light on the mystery of why Gigantopithecus blacki – a type of primate sometimes called the real King Kong because it stood nearly 10 feet (3 meters) tall – disappeared. gone
Paleontologists analyzed and dated fossils and sediments from the caves where the animals’ remains were found to understand how their diet and the environment the creatures lived in changed over time, narrowing the frame probable time and cause of extinction of the species.
Gigantopithecus was discovered in 1935 after paleontologist GHR von Koenigswald found large teeth being sold as “dragon bones” in a traditional medicine shop in Hong Kong.
Around the globe
The first fast radio burst, or FRB, was discovered in 2007, and since then, scientists have detected hundreds of intense millisecond bursts of radio waves coming from distant points across the universe.
Little is known about these fast, cosmic flashes and their origins. But now astronomers have traced one of the most powerful and distant radio bursts ever detected back to its unusual cosmic home: a group of rare “blob-like” galaxies.
The unexpected discovery could shed light on what causes the mysterious bursts of radio waves, a question that has puzzled scientists for years.
Once upon a planet
The world’s oldest fossilized skin belonged to a species of reptile that lived before dinosaurs walked the Earth.
With a pebbly surface that resembles crocodile scales, the fragment of skin is more than 289 million years old – at least 130 million years older than the previous oldest skin fossil, according to a newly published study Thursday.
Skin and other types of soft tissue are rarely fossilized, as these disappear much more easily than bone.
But researchers at the University of Toronto Mississauga believe this sample was preserved because of the unique features of its location: the Richards Spur limestone cave system in Oklahoma, where many of the oldest examples of early land animals have been found.
Inquiries
Note these remarkable stories:
— China, in partnership with the European Space Agency and other institutions, has launched a probe that will look for X-ray bursts from black holes and other high-energy space phenomena.
— Despite growing concerns from scientists and the environment, Norway could be the first country to allow deep-sea mining.
— A 106-year-old three-masted sailing ship is on a two-year voyage retracing the pivotal voyage of British naturalist Charles Darwin that did much to inspire his theory of evolution.
— An older and equally large relative of T. rex has been newly identified in New Mexico, according to researchers.
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