Weekly - Experts find Apollo-17 lander causing moonquakes and more
Weekly Space News - Quick and Easy
JAXA launches Moon mission
The Japanese national space agency JAXA successfully launched its new Moon mission last week. The mission has a lander called the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) or “Moon Sniper”. It is going to attempt to land on the Moon after 4-6 months. If this mission is successful, and SLIM lands on the Moon, Japan will become the 5th country to land on the Moon.
Perseverance makes oxygen on Mars for the last time
NASA’s Perseverance rover on Mars managed to make oxygen on the red planet recently. This was done using the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE). MOXIE works by extracting the carbon dioxide from Mars’ atmosphere and then converting that into pure oxygen. However, it is important to know that the amount of oxygen produced is really less. It can only produce 12 grams of oxygen in an hour. According to NASA, this is the last time MOXIE’s last oxygen-making attempt.
South Africa to collaborate with China to make Moonbase
The South African National Space Agency (SANSA) recently announced that it is going to collaborate with the Chinese national space agency CNSA to build a permanent Moon base. However, this collaboration will not be limited to these two countries. ROSCOSMOS, the Russian space agency, is also involved. All 3 countries are going to work together to build the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) in the future.
Experts find Apollo-17 lander causing moonquakes
Sensors on the Apollo-17 lander have been observing some highly unusual moonquakes in the past few years. These moonquakes occurred with surprising regularity every lunar morning and repeated every day. They also stood out when compared to the other moonquakes. Experts recently identified the source of these moonquakes and found something remarkable. The moonquakes were coming from the Apollo-17 lander itself. The reason behind this is that every morning, when the sunlight hits the lander, it expands and starts popping and vibrating. This thus causes the moonquakes.
