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The moon is hundreds of thousands of kilometers away from Earth, but humanity has played a major role in shaping it for more than sixty years.
In fact, human exploration has had such a big impact on changing the moon’s surface that some scientists argue it’s time to declare a new geological epoch called the “lunar Anthropocene.”
Experts say the era began when the former Soviet Union’s unmanned spacecraft, Luna 2, made a hard landing on the moon in September 1959, leaving a crater behind.
Hundreds of missions have followed since then, and whether they crash-landed or successfully landed for a soft landing, each spacecraft has left its mark.
Rovers, science experiments, golf balls, and other telltale signs of human exploration are still on the moon’s surface, and it’s just getting started as more and more space agencies and countries plan trips to the moon.
The Peregrine spacecraft burned up on re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere on Thursday after a fuel leak prevented it from reaching the moon, but another spacecraft was en route for a rendezvous on the moon.
Moon update
Japan’s robotic explorer ‘Moon Sniper’ successfully landed on the moon’s surface on Friday, but almost immediately encountered a critical problem.
After performing a precise landing, the unmanned Smart Lander for Investigating Moon mission (or SLIM mission) had to rely on limited battery power because the solar cell did not generate electricity.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency team said it believes the solar problem is a result of the spacecraft facing the wrong direction.
But all hope should not be lost for the lander and its two rovers, which are designed to study the moon’s origins. If the Moon Sniper can catch some sunlight, the mission can continue.
A long time ago
Before they went extinct about 4,000 years ago, woolly mammoths roamed North America — and people followed them.
Researchers have been able to trace the long journeys by studying mammoth tusks, which store information about the animals’ environment and diet as time capsules.
By using a precise new instrument to study chemical traces in a tusk, a team led by scientists from the University of Alaska Fairbanks was able to track the movements of Élmayųujey’eh, or Elma, a female mammoth who lived 14,000 years ago.
When researchers compared Elma’s movements to maps of archaeological sites, it became clear that people set up seasonal hunting camps in areas where mammoths gathered.
Wild kingdom
Malaysian tigers are disappearing at an alarming rate and there are only an estimated 150 tigers left in the country’s ancient rainforests. To support conservation efforts, photographer Emmanuel Rondeau teamed up with WWF-Malaysia to capture an image of the iconic but elusive big cat.
The effort was a huge undertaking that required a team of rangers, eight cameras, 300 pounds of equipment, months of patience and countless miles. An ant colony overwhelmed one camera and an elephant destroyed another.
But Rondeau’s careful preparations paid off and he made a “million dollar shot.” “This image is the last image of the Malayan tiger – or it is the first image of the return of the Malayan tiger,” he said.
Would you like to see more enchanting photos? Check out some of the winning images from the 2023 Close-up Photographer of the Year competition, including an oak peacock moth attracted to a wedding and ants shooting acid into the air.
Dig this
About 29 million years ago, a grasshopper in Oregon dug an underground nursery in a sandbar near a creek and laid about 50 eggs in a stunning radial pattern.
Instead of hatching, the group of eggs fossilized and now produces food a rare window into what life was like for ancient insects.
Normally, neither insects nor their delicate eggs are well preserved in the fossil record. It is even more surprising that the locust farm has survived since then according to the researchers, it was found in an area where water once flowed.
“To our knowledge, nothing like it exists anywhere else in the fossil record,” said Dr. Nick Famoso, paleontology program manager and museum curator at John Day Fossil Beds National Monument in Mitchell, Oregon.
Power of nature
Winter storms that swept through the United States this week have brought snow and freezing temperatures to many areas — and some in Chicago have experienced “freeze quakes.”
Frostquakes are loud, booming, or popping sounds accompanied by small, earthquake-like vibrations that can occur during a sudden freezing of the ground in cold weather.
Although the sounds frostquakes make are disturbing, they are not dangerous and won’t knock framed photos off the wall, according to Illinois climatologist Trent Ford.
Scientists hope to unravel more of the mysteries surrounding frostquakes, and whether they are increasing or not, by monitoring areas where the phenomenon is occurring this winter.
Explorations
You won’t want to miss these intriguing new stories:
– A laser mapping technique has helped archaeologists uncover the oldest and largest network of ancient cities in the Amazon rainforest.
— The process of bringing Retro, a cloned rhesus monkey, to life has revealed some of the limitations of cloning, according to scientists.
— NASA and Lockheed Martin just unveiled the sleek X-59, a silent supersonic aircraft that could change the future of air travel.
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