Later this week, China will embark on the world’s second-only trip to the Moon’s far side. The goal is to collect the first rocks from inside the South Pole-Aitken (SPA) basin, the largest and oldest impact crater on the lunar surface, and bring them back to Earth for analysis. A stack of four spacecraft needed … Read more
Hello Nature readers, would you like to get this Briefing in your inbox free every day? Sign up here. Credit: Chinese Academy of Sciences via Xinhua/Alamy The Chinese Academy of Sciences has released the highest-resolution geological atlas of the Moon yet. The Geologic Atlas of the Lunar Globe reveals a total of 12,341 craters, 81 … Read more
The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) has released the highest-resolution geological maps of the Moon yet. The Geologic Atlas of the Lunar Globe, which took more than 100 researchers over a decade to compile, reveals a total of 12,341 craters, 81 basins and 17 rock types, along with other basic geological information about the lunar … Read more
Rebel Moon – Part 2: The Scargiver, the second instalment in Zack Snyder’s Star Wars-scale epic, is getting some decidedly mixed reviews. The Guardian says that while it’s fun, it’s also bombastic and derivative, Variety says the story’s worse than the first one but the battles are better, and Empire Magazine pretty much cuts it … Read more
Rebel Moon: Part 2 – The Scargiver is an empty feast. It’s a relentless onslaught of explosions, sci-fi tropes and meaningless exposition that amounts to nothing. And yet somehow it’s still better than the first film in Zack Snyder’s wannabe sci-fi epic franchise for Netflix, Rebel Moon: Part 1 – A Child of Fire. (What … Read more
Three companies are vying for the opportunity to send their own lunar vehicle to the moon to support NASA’s upcoming Artemis missions. The this week that it’s chosen Intuitive Machines, Lunar Outpost and Venturi Astrolab to develop their lunar terrain vehicles (LTV) in a feasibility study over the next year. After that, only one is … Read more
The White House has published a policy memo asking NASA to create a new time standard for the Moon by 2026. Coordinated Lunar Time (LTC) will establish an official time reference to help guide future lunar missions. The US, China, Japan, India and Russia have space missions to the Moon planned or completed. NASA (and … Read more
On Tuesday, The White House published a policy memo directing NASA to create a new time standard for the Moon by 2026. Coordinated Lunar Time (LTC) will establish an official time reference to help guide future lunar missions. It arrives as a 21st-century space race emerges between (at least) the US, China, Japan, India and … Read more
NASA, in collaboration with a team of international scientists, researchers, designers, and artists led by French engineer Benoit Faiveley, is set to send another time capsule to the moon. The project, titled “Sanctuary on the Moon”, is part of NASA’s ambitious Artemis CLPS program and enjoys the support of UNESCO and the patronage of French … Read more
A budding startup called Interlune is trying to become the first private company to mine the moon’s natural resources and sell them back on Earth. Interlune will initially focus on helium-3 — a helium isotope created by the sun through the process of fusion — which is abundant on the moon. In an interview with … Read more