Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus spacecraft has landed on the Moon, making history as the first private spacecraft to successfully land on the lunar surface.
The landing was the USA’s first back on the moon for 50 years.
After the successful landing was confirmed, Steve Altemus, CEO of Intuitive Machines said: “What an outstanding effort. I know this was a nail-biter, but we are on the surface and we are transmitting, and welcome to the Moon.”
It is a huge feat for the space exploration company and it is thought the mission’s success will open the floodgates to more future private missions to the Moon.
In other news from space; Nasa engineers are carrying out a final push to re-establish communication with Voyager 1, after losing contact.
The probe was launched back in 1977 and has ventured more than 15 billion miles from Earth, securing its place as the furthest-travelled object made by humanity.
However, since mid-November last year, Voyager 1 has struggled to transmit its data back to Earth.
Linda Spilker from Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Lab told Tech & Science Daily how they’re trying to re-establish communication with the probe, and explained what it will do if they are unable to fix the issue.
Scientists believe they may have worked out the underlying cause of long-COVID brain fog.
Experts say coronavirus caused disruption in the blood-brain barrier of some people who caught it, suggesting it could be the cause of the cognitive issues seen in those struggling with the condition.
After analysing the serum and plasma samples of covid patients who needed hospital treatment in 2020, researchers from Trinity College Dublin and research centre FutureNeuro found that those with long COVID who had leaks in the blood-brain barrier had brain fog, while those without disruption did not.
Palaeontologists in the Guizhou province in southern China have found a fossil that looks like a Chinese red dragon, and they have depicted it in full for the first time.
The fossil of a long-necked 240-million-year-old marine reptile called the Dinocephalosaurus Orientalis was originally identified in 2003.
But the discovery of additional, more complete specimens since then has enabled an international team of scientists to depict the creature in full.
Experts have shared an artist’s impression of the creature from the Triassic period, with a snake-like head, a super-long neck, and sharp teeth.
Also in this episode:
Barriers against Antarctic ice melt disappearing at the double, scientists discover how bacteria pair up to boost their defence system, and how snakes hit the evolutionary jackpot.
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