chandrayaan-3 lander, luna 25, moon, moon exploration, moon landing, space

Almost Half of Moon Missions Fail. Why Is Space Still So Hard?

In 2019, India attempted to land a spacecraft on the Moon — and ended up painting a kilometres-long streak of debris on its barren surface. Now, the Indian Space Research Organisation has returned in triumph, with the Chandrayaan-3 lander successfully touching down near the south pole of Earth’s rocky Moon neighbor. India’s success came just ...

Troy Oakes

A Moon landing.

NASA’s Lunar Flashlight Ready to Search for the Moon’s Water Ice

Set for a November launch, the small satellite mission will use lasers to search for water ice inside the darkest craters at the Moon’s South Pole. It’s known that water ice exists below the lunar regolith (broken rock and dust), but scientists don’t yet understand whether surface ice frost covers the floors inside these cold ...

Troy Oakes

NASA's Lunar Flashlight satellite.

Artificial Intelligence Explores the Moon’s Permanently Shadowed Regions

With the help of artificial intelligence, an international research team led by ETH Zurich has explored the Moon’s permanently shadowed regions. The information they have obtained about the area’s surface properties will help to identify suitable locations for future lunar missions. It was 1972 when the last humans landed on the Moon. The Apollo program ...

Troy Oakes

The dark side of the Moon.

Scientists Succeed at Growing Plants in Lunar Soil

Ever since humans set foot on the lunar soil, excitement has stirred with the possibility of allowing people to live on the moon. At the time, it may have sounded like a far-fetched concept but scientists have taken a leap forward. Several moon space missions have been carried out by different countries, notably the USA ...

Jack Roberts

Seedlings growing in lunar soil.

Scientists Recover Gases From Moon Rock Time Capsule

Scientists from Washington University in St. Louis are helping to recover gases from a Moon rock container that astronauts collected and sealed under vacuum on the surface of the Moon in 1972. The effort is part of NASA’s Apollo Next Generation Sample Analysis (ANGSA) initiative. Apollo 17 astronauts Harrison Schmitt and Eugene Cernan collected the sample from ...

Troy Oakes

A Moon rock in a sealed container.

Late Heavy Bombardment of the Moon Revealed

The Moon’s surface is covered by numerous craters that date back to the impacts of asteroids. Age determinations on lunar rocks formed during these impacts show a surprising clustering at ages of about 3.9 billion years before present, or about 500 million years after the Moon was formed. These observations have led to the theory ...

Troy Oakes

Space Station flying by the Moon.

One Small Grain of Moon Dust, One Giant Leap for Lunar Studies

Back in 1972, NASA sent their last team of astronauts to the Moon in the Apollo 17 mission. These astronauts brought Moon dust and rocks back to Earth so scientists could continue to study lunar soil in their labs. Since we haven’t returned to the Moon in almost 50 years, every lunar sample is precious. ...

Troy Oakes

A full Moon.

China’s Chang’e-4 Mission Discovers New ‘Secrets’

A lunar lander named for the Chinese Goddess of the Moon may have lessened the mystery of the far side of the Moon. The fourth probe of Chang’e-4 was the first mission to land on the far side of the Moon, and it has collected new evidence from the largest crater in the solar system, ...

Troy Oakes

Dark side of the Moon.

Russia Positions Moon Program as Alternative to the U.S.

The United States has proposed the construction of a lunar orbit station and has asked Russia to participate in the venture. However, Russia has held off committing to the project until the concept for its national Moon exploration is completed. The concept is expected to be ready by March this year. Russia believes that its ...

Troy Oakes