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As the full moon shines in the night sky this weekend, take a moment to enjoy its beauty and seek out the vast, dark plain.
The view on the surface is Mare Tranquillitatis, or the Sea of Tranquility, where the Apollo 11 mission landed on the afternoon of July 20, 1969.
The full moon won’t peak until 6:17 a.m. Sunday, but the silvery orb will still be at its best on Saturday, the 55th anniversary of NASA’s astronautics. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin performs humanity’s first moon walk.
As NASA and other space agencies plan for a more established human presence on the Moon through the Artemis program, it turns out that the Sea of Tranquility may hold an undiscovered treasure worth revisiting.
Monthly update
Scientists have discovered a subterranean cavity beneath the Sea of Tranquility that could serve as a cave-like shelter for future astronauts traveling to the Moon.
Lunar caves, or underground passages, formed by volcanic processes in the Moon’s early history, are connected to the craters that cover the Moon’s surface.
It is thought that the long and wide cave, found by examining NASA archive data, could be used to protect astronauts from harsh radiation and extreme temperature changes, and could also offer a new way to study lunar rocks.
Other worlds
Astronomers have detected an exoplanet with a cucumber-shaped orbit that could be another type of Earth.
TIC 241249530 b’s unusual orbit, which brings temperatures from a hot summer day to temperatures high enough to melt titanium, could be a sign that the planet is moving closer to its star.
Astronomers predict that the planet will take a few days to orbit its star instead of six months, making it a hot version of Jupiter.
Separately, the European Space Agency plans to send a spacecraft called Ramses to accompany the asteroid Apophis as it makes a safe, close approach to Earth in April 2029 — 10 times closer than the Moon. The spacecraft could pick up earthquakes and landslides on the space rock, which is affected by Earth’s gravity.
magnificent creatures
If pets with flat faces, such as French Bulldogs and Persians, or puffy cheeks, such as Maine Coons, squint and exhibit behavioral problems, they may have blepharoplasty, a painful condition.
In some breeds of dogs and cats, a genetically deformed eyelid problem that causes the eyelashes to rub against the cornea is more common.
But what people call cosmetic surgery is helping a 4-year-old English Bulldog pet named Hamilton overcome the pain caused by his misshapen eyelids.
“These pinches and squeezes are not for cosmetic purposes; they are critical to the animal’s health,” said Dr. Dana Varble, chief veterinary officer of the North American Veterinary Medical Association.
Great
The Curiosity rover hit a rock as it was settling into a new exploration site on Mars, making what mission scientists say is the “most unexpected” discovery of its 12-year mission.
Curiosity’s wheels revealed that the rock’s interior contained something never before seen on the red planet: yellowish-green sulfur crystals. And it turned out to be a field of them in an ancient channel carved into the side of Mars’ Mount Sharp.
But scientists don’t know how, when or why sulfur forms on Mars, creating a new puzzle for the rover’s crew to solve.
Meanwhile, the newly established African Space Agency is launching satellites to improve the quality of life on Earth, such as monitoring water quality and preventing illegal mining and fishing.
Long time ago
While dinosaurs roamed the Earth during the Cretaceous Period, sharks with unusual teeth swam the seas.
Sharks in the genus Ptychodus had rows of large, rounded teeth that crushed their crustacean prey, but scientists have only been able to speculate about the predators’ appearance since they found the teeth.
Paleontologists have recently unearthed a nearly complete skeleton of the ancient shark in the Mexican state of Nuevo Léon, solving the mystery of the prehistoric fish’s origins.
Separately, cut marks on the fossilized remains of a giant armadillo-like creature in Argentina suggest that humans slaughtered the animal more than 20,000 years ago, suggesting that the first humans in the Americas settled there earlier than expected.
Discoveries
Dive into these unexpected stories:
— Experts in New Zealand are trying to determine whether the creature that washed up on shore is a spade-toothed whale. The spade-toothed whale is a species that is almost mythical because scientists have never recorded a living image of it.
— NASA has made the first attempt to send a hip-hop song into space, transmitting Missy Elliott’s “The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)” to Venus, some 158 million miles away.
— A record number of Siamese crocodile eggs have hatched in the wild in Cambodia, bringing hope to a species that was nearly driven to extinction.
— Images of a fiery meteor streaking across New York City and breaking apart over New Jersey this week have been captured in the sky. Skywatchers captured video of the rare event.
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