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Gazing at February’s full snow moon, which will light up the night sky this weekend, may feel a little more special than usual after a dramatic moon landing.
Just over a week after launch, Intuitive Machines’ unmanned IM-1 lander, also called Odysseus or “Odie,” successfully landed near the moon’s south pole on Thursday evening.
It was a historic moment. The milestone marked the first time a commercial spacecraft has soft-landed on the moon – and the first American-made spacecraft to reach the lunar surface since Apollo 17 in 1972.
However, Odie’s journey was anything but expected, and the spacecraft experienced a “dynamic situation” that forced mission team members to think quickly to avoid disaster.
Tuning into the webcast of the landing felt as dramatic as watching a space thriller, and it was a reminder of why it’s still so difficult to land on the moon, more than 50 years after humanity initially achieved the feat.
Moon update
Hours before Odie’s landing, the spacecraft experienced an unexpected problem with the navigation system that might have prevented a safe landing.
Fortunately, the lander had NASA’s navigational Doppler Lidar on board. The sensor was aboard Odie as a technology experiment to help future landers achieve accurate touchdowns, which involved shooting lasers at the surface to find a safe landing zone.
The experimental technology ultimately saved the day and played a key role in unlocking this monumental achievement.
Although Odie ended up on its side after hitting one of his feet on a moon rock, the spacecraft remains stable, can charge its solar panels and has already achieved a number of key mission objectives.
Fantastic creatures
Vultures are often seen as dirty animals, but these misunderstood birds help keep the planet as clean as their own feathers.
“Vultures are meticulous about their cleanliness,” says Kerri Wolter, founder and CEO of conservation group VulPro in South Africa. “They spend hours cleaning their feathers after feeding because those feathers need to be streamlined and cleaned so well before flight. They don’t flutter like other birds, they fly.”
Vultures efficiently scavenge dead animals and prevent the build-up of bacteria that can cause disease outbreaks in other animals and humans. Their stomachs are even capable of destroying anthrax.
But some vulture species in sub-Saharan Africa are critically endangered due to poisoning and hunting. That’s why conservationists are keen to offer the much-maligned birds a sanctuary.
Curiosities
When a 280-million-year-old ancient reptile fossil was found in the Italian Alps in 1931, researchers thought it was an exceptionally well-preserved specimen.
The dark color of the lizard-like animal’s remains resembled soft tissue and skin that may contain biological information that could be used to understand how early reptiles evolved.
But a new cutting-edge analysis has revealed that the fossil is largely a forgery. The dark color is simply black paint covering scales and a few leg bones encased in carved rock.
Now the team has a new puzzle: figuring out exactly which creature was trapped in the rock.
Looking at the sky
When a 5,000-pound European Space Agency satellite fell to Earth this week, it was an example of how much space junk surrounds the planet.
It is estimated that nearly 30,000 objects larger than a softball fly a few hundred miles above Earth at a speed ten times faster than a bullet.
And with governments and private companies launching thousands of satellites in the future, astronomers worry that light pollution from all objects in low Earth orbit will affect scientists’ ability to study the cosmos.
A new mission has just launched to take a closer look at space debris, such as an abandoned rocket stage, to determine the best and safest way to remove it from orbit.
Ocean secrets
Scientists first heard whale songs underwater more than fifty years ago, and how the leviathans produce these resonant sounds has long baffled researchers – until now.
A baleen whale, such as a humpback or minke whale, has a uniquely shaped larynx in its throat that allows the marine mammal to produce sound and take in enormous amounts of air when it surfaces.
The songs, both eerie and fascinating, allow whales to find each other and mate in the dark depths of the ocean.
But the low-frequency sounds can only be made within 100 meters of the surface, because whales must breathe to emit their calls – and rumbling man-made vessels are a major obstacle that disrupts whale communication.
The miracle
These stories may blow your mind:
— Astronomers have discovered the brightest known object in the universe, and it’s powered by the fastest-growing black hole ever observed.
Researchers have revealed the stunning fossil of a 240-million-year-old marine reptile, and the mysterious creature resembles a mythical Chinese dragon.
– Forgotten artifacts in a Berlin museum’s collection have revealed that Neanderthals likely made glue that helped them hold stone tools, suggesting these ancient human ancestors were capable of complex thinking.
– Although it is not yet possible for people to board a spacecraft to Mars, NASA is looking for volunteers who want to live and work in a Mars simulator for a year.
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