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Over the past few years, rival countries have turned the moon into a hotspot for activity not seen since Apollo 17 astronauts left the lunar surface in 1972.
In one region of the Moon, Japan’s “Lunar Sniper” mission has overcome all odds and survived three long, cold lunar nights since its sideways landing on January 19.
Engineers at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency didn’t design the spacecraft to last through a lunar night, a two-week period of freezing darkness, but Moon Sniper continues to thrive in the moon’s extreme conditions and send back new images of the landing site.
Elsewhere, an international team of astronomers believes it is focused on a crater formed several million years ago when something massive crashed into the Moon’s surface and ejected a chunk of it from the far side, or Earth-facing side, of the moon. into space. Most of the moon has become a rare quasi-satellite or asteroid orbiting near Earth.
The Tianwen-2 mission will visit the space rock later this decade. But first, China set its sights on returning to the “hidden side” of the moon.
month update
The Chang’e-6 mission, launched on Friday, aims to return the first samples from the South Pole-Aitken basin, the largest and oldest crater on the moon. Since the Chang’e 4 mission in 2019, China remains the only country to land on the far side of the moon, sometimes called the “dark side” of the moon.
Experts say the “dark side” of the moon is actually a misnomer, and the far lunar hemisphere receives light; Scientists don’t know as much about the region as they would like.
Its far side is very different from the near side discovered during the Apollo missions, with its thicker crust.
Scientists hope that samples brought back from the far side could solve some of the greatest remaining lunar mysteries, including the true origin of the moon.
Long time ago
Examining the Herculaneum scrolls, papyrologists have uncovered details about Plato’s last evening and final resting place.
When Mount Vesuvius erupted in AD 79, volcanic ash charred and buried papyrus scrolls; However, experts collected information about the fragile artifacts using innovative technology.
According to Graziano Ranocchia, professor of papyrology at the University of Pisa, the Greek philosopher’s burial site was probably a secret garden near the sacred temple at the Platonic Academy of Athens.
And Ranocchia noted that the translated text showed that Plato was not a fan of the flute music he played as he languished on his deathbed, commenting to a guest about that music’s “inadequate sense of rhythm.”
we are a family
Approximately 75,000 years ago, a Neanderthal woman was laid in a cave with a rock placed under her head as a pillow.
Now scientists named it after paleoanthropologist Dr. Taking 200 bone fragments from the cave in Iraqi Kurdistan where Emma Pomeroy found the remains in 2018, Shanidar reassembled the skull in a “high-stakes 3D puzzle” to recreate Z’s face.
“It actually has a rather large face compared to its height,” said Pomeroy, an associate professor of archeology at the University of Cambridge. “He’s got some pretty big eyebrow ridges that we don’t usually see, but I think if he were wearing modern clothes you probably wouldn’t look twice.”
dig this
Amateur archaeologists have uncovered an astonishing 1,700-year-old artifact that represents “one of archaeology’s greatest mysteries,” according to the Norton Disney History and Archeology Group.
The 12-sided object is 3 inches (8 centimeters) in diameter, hollow and covered in holes. This is one of the largest Roman dodecahedrons ever found, and there are only about 130 in the world.
No one knows what they were used for, and dodecahedrons do not appear in Roman literature or mosaics. However, it is possible for objects to play a role in rituals or religious ceremonies.
fantasy creatures
Rakus, a Sumatran orangutan living in Gunung Leuser National Park in southern Aceh, Indonesia, surprised scientists when they saw him deliberately treating a wound on his face using a medicinal herb.
This is the first time researchers have documented such behavior in great apes.
Rakus, who was probably injured by another male orangutan, chewed the leaves of a plant known locally as akar kuning, which is used in traditional medicine to treat dysentery, malaria and diabetes.
He then applied the juice of the leaves to his wound, leaving researchers wondering whether this pain-relieving treatment was accidental or a learned behavior from other wild orangutans.
curious things
Dive deeper into these engaging reads:
— A new analysis of hunter-gatherer remains found in a cave in Morocco has revealed the true “paleo” diet and what was really on the Stone Age menu 13,000 years ago.
Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft, which carried astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore on a test flight, now has the green light from NASA to attempt a launch to the International Space Station on Monday evening.
— Remember the play “The Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon”? Scientists have identified what they call the “Kevin Bacon degrees” gene, which may provide a genetic basis for determining how central you are in your social network.
— Here comes that voice! Learn all about periodic cicadas in this visual guide to the rare double emergence of 2024.
Be sure to look up in the early pre-dawn hours on Sunday and Monday to see the Eta Aquariid meteor shower dazzling across the night sky.
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