All posts tagged: Lunar

Why the US-China Moon race could turn into a lunar land grab

Why the US-China Moon race could turn into a lunar land grab

Published by skeptic

Sixty years ago, the United States and the Soviet Union were embroiled in a race to the Moon, which the USA won. The 21st-century lunar contest, with China stepping in for the Soviet Union, has many similarities, but key differences. The Apollo astronauts planted the stars and stripes in lunar soil, bounced – and drove – around, set up experiments and collected scientifically valuable rock samples. Ultimately, however, there was no real plan to stay. The new Moon race is different: space agencies are targeting the south pole of the Moon due to its deposits of water ice. This water can be used for life support on a lunar base. It can also be turned into rocket fuel, splitting it into the hydrogen and oxygen used by space vehicles, making it a valuable resource. But ice deposits are not evenly distributed and suitable spots for establishing human outposts are finite. This could spark competition to bag the best spots. So will the US-China lunar contest turn into a land grab? For anyone growing up in …

AI can quickly spot and catalog lunar craters, but accuracy remains a major problem

AI can quickly spot and catalog lunar craters, but accuracy remains a major problem

Published by Jenni Sidey

The Moon’s cratered surface may seem like the perfect place to hand repetitive work to machines. There are millions of impact marks to track, and every one of them can help tell time on a planetary scale. But a new analysis argues that many AI-built lunar crater catalogs are not yet as reliable as their headline numbers suggest. In planetary science, crater catalogs do far more than list circles on a map. They record location, size, and other characteristics of impact structures, giving researchers a way to estimate surface ages, reconstruct geologic history, and study how landscapes changed over time. If those measurements are wrong, the science built on top of them can slip as well. “AI has enormous potential to help with repetitive, time-consuming scientific tasks, especially gathering some of our data,” said Dr. Stuart J. Robbins of Southwest Research Institute’s Solar System Science and Exploration Division in Boulder, Colorado, who led the study. “But our analysis shows that researchers should not assume an AI-generated crater catalog is ready for scientific use solely based …

ISS test finds that moon dust could be effective as a lunar building material

ISS test finds that moon dust could be effective as a lunar building material

Published by Jenni Sidey

Building material samples from the University of Delaware spent six months bolted to the outside of the International Space Station, exposed to vacuum, radiation and constant temperature swings. When they came back, some were stronger than matching samples kept on Earth. That result does not mean moon bases are around the corner. But it does offer an encouraging sign for one of the hardest practical problems in space exploration: how to build roads, landing pads, shelters and shields without hauling huge amounts of construction material from Earth. The team is working with geopolymers, a cement-like material that can be made by chemically binding clay-rich powders into a solid. In this case, the powders were simulated lunar and Martian regolith, stand-ins for the dusty surface material found on those worlds. The results appear in Advances in Space Research, with related processing work reported in Acta Astronautica and a special issue of the Journal of Rheology. “Regolith is essentially a clay-like silicate material,” said Norman Wagner, the Unidel Robert L. Pigford Chair in Chemical Engineering at the …

The lunar botanist with a plan to farm vegetables on the moon

The lunar botanist with a plan to farm vegetables on the moon

Published by skeptic

Astronaut Mark Watney is stranded on Mars and must somehow find a way to grow potatoes in the planet’s unforgiving, ochre soil before he starves. This is the plot of The Martian, which is very much a work of fiction. But for a real-life space botanist, look no further than Jessica Atkin. Her skills might soon be in demand. After all, the recent Artemis II mission that circled the moon is a reminder that NASA is working towards a permanent base on the lunar surface. Sending pre-packaged food up from Earth may be enough to feed those living there for a while. But to make a moon base truly self-sustaining, its astronauts will need to grow their own crops. Doing so is a tall order: in addition to colonists needing to mine the moon’s reserves of water ice to hydrate their crops, the harsh, volcanic lunar dust, or regolith, is remarkably hostile to plant life. That’s where Atkin, who is based at Texas A&M University, comes in. She recently showed that lunar regolith spiked with …

Rare lunar meteorite was smacked three times before finally hitting Earth

Rare lunar meteorite was smacked three times before finally hitting Earth

Published by Jenni Sidey

Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. By signing up, you confirm you are 16+, will receive newsletters and promotional content and agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe at any time. A rare type of meteorite discovered in Mali is revealing a multibillion-year tale of lunar catastrophes. With its unique composition, astronomers are beginning to better understand the processes that shaped not only the moon and Earth, but the solar system itself. The study recently published in the journal Geology is nearly 10 years in the making and focuses on a meteorite classified as NWA 12593. Found in the west African nation in 2017, experts soon recognized the space rock as an especially unique specimen. NWA 12593 is one of only 53 known lunar breccia—a meteorite formed by the amalgamation of multiple moon fragments during separate impacts billions of years ago.  “Breccias are similar to what you would see if you went and chipped …

Lunar meteorite discovery reveals violent chapter in the inner solar system 3.5 billion years ago

Lunar meteorite discovery reveals violent chapter in the inner solar system 3.5 billion years ago

Published by Jenni Sidey

Earth’s earliest chapter is mostly gone. Rocks from the planet’s first few billion years have been eroded, buried, recycled, or dragged back into the mantle. This has left only scattered traces of the world in which life first appeared. Therefore, every surviving clue is unusually valuable, especially when scientists are trying to answer a basic question. How often did giant impacts strike the young inner solar system while life was beginning on Earth? A lunar meteorite recovered in northwest Africa is now offering one of those clues. In a study published in Geology, researchers report that the rock records a major impact on the Moon about 3.486 billion years ago. The age closely matches evidence of ancient impacts preserved on Earth. It also matches impact ages tied to 4 Vesta, the fourth-largest object in the asteroid belt. That rare overlap, the team says, helps connect the histories of three different bodies at a time when the inner solar system was still getting hammered. This happened long after the most chaotic phase of planet formation had …

Moon dust could become the foundation of humanity’s first permanent lunar base

Moon dust could become the foundation of humanity’s first permanent lunar base

Published by Jenni Sidey

The dust under a moonwalker’s boots looks harmless from a distance. Up close, it is anything but. Lunar regolith, the blanket of pulverized rock and glass covering the moon, is abrasive, dangerous and unforgiving. In fact, it can tear through seals, wear down equipment and cling to surfaces in an airless environment. That environment is marked by radiation and violent temperature swings. That makes it one of the worst imaginable building materials. It may also be one of the most important. At Texas A&M University, researchers are treating lunar regolith not just as a hazard to survive. Instead, they see it as a resource to use. Their work is tied to one of the biggest practical questions in space exploration. That question is how to build a lasting human presence on the moon without hauling nearly everything from Earth. Researchers at Texas A&M are designing the blueprint for sustained human presence, and settlement, on the moon. (CREDIT: AI generated image / Texas A&M University) “We are moving past the era of ‘flags and footprints,’” said …

NASA Details Its Plan to Build a Lunar Base at the Moon’s South Pole

NASA Details Its Plan to Build a Lunar Base at the Moon’s South Pole

Published by skeptic

NASA finally presented the details of its phased plan to create the first lunar base at the moon’s south pole. Although the construction of a space research center that will allow a sustained human presence will take at least a decade, the missions that will lay its technological and symbolic foundations will start in the next few years. Among them is the test of Blue Origin’s Blue Moon Mark 1 Endurance lander, scheduled for the end of 2026. The Moon Base project replaced in priority the Gateway program, an orbital station similar to the International Space Station that would serve as a node between the Earth and the moon. At the beginning of 2026, NASA rethought and simplified its strategy: It decided to concentrate resources on the lunar surface, reducing operating costs and accelerating the Artemis schedule. After weeks of silence, the agency published its new plan. A Lunar Base in 3 Steps So far, the plan for the lunar base consists of three phases. The first, from 2026 to 2029, will be dedicated to …

Dark crater laser could standardize lunar navigation and timekeeping

Dark crater laser could standardize lunar navigation and timekeeping

Published by Jenni Sidey

A crater that never sees sunlight might sound like the wrong place to build delicate scientific equipment. Jun Ye sees it differently. In the permanent darkness near the Moon’s south pole, some craters stay so cold and still that they may offer the best natural setting in the solar system for one of physics’ most demanding instruments: an ultrastable laser. Ye, who is affiliated with both the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and JILA, a joint institute of NIST and the University of Colorado Boulder, and an international team of researchers argue that these permanently shadowed regions could support a silicon optical cavity with a level of frequency stability beyond today’s best Earth-based systems. That kind of laser would do far more than sit quietly in a crater. It could help create a lunar time standard, guide spacecraft trying to land in badly lit terrain, link satellites with precise optical signals, and support future experiments in gravity, astronomy, and quantum networking. The case rests on a simple idea. A laser becomes more stable …

Rivals star and Pride & Prejudice icon confirmed for new ‘propulsive lunar thriller’ series

Rivals star and Pride & Prejudice icon confirmed for new ‘propulsive lunar thriller’ series

Published by Daniella Wilson

Alex Hassell and Jennifer Ehle have joined the cast of ITV’s upcoming space thriller First Woman, which imagines a shocking disappearance that takes place on the lunar surface. The synopsis reads: “A biologist taking part in a groundbreaking research project, Claire Reith (Andrea Riseborough) is the first woman to set foot on the moon, and her disappearance throws suspicion on her fellow astronauts and China’s rival base. “With hundreds of thousands of miles between them, can her husband Ben (Ashley Walters) uncover the truth behind his wife’s disappearance?” It adds: “With the action switching between Mission Control in the UK and the lunar surface, this is a race against time like no other, with the remaining astronauts under increasing pressure and Ben hoping against hope that he and his wife can be reunited. “But how well can two people really know each other?” Want to see this content? This page contains content provided by Google reCAPTCHA. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as Google reCAPTCHA may use cookies and other technologies. To …