Former NASA astronaut explains why Firefly's 'Blue Ghost' moon landing is so rare

(CNN) — Each time a robotic explorer launches from Earth, it faces innumerable challenges — any of which could cut the mission short.

California-based asteroid mining company AstroForge shared on Thursday that its Odin spacecraft, which ventured to space a week and a half ago with Intuitive Machines’ Athena lunar lander, met an untimely end.

The probe was heading for an asteroid to scout for the valuable resource platinum. But Odin’s team said the vehicle is likely tumbling through space, with little hope of restoring communications.

Space is hard, and every bold mission adds lessons learned. This week, a tale of two lunar landers demonstrates why scientists and engineers always expect the unexpected in the saga of space exploration.

Defying gravity

On March 2, Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lunar lander touched down on the moon, making it the second private sector company to execute the feat.

Photos showcasing the spacecraft’s dramatic shadow on the lunar surface and its feet within moon dust confirmed the mission’s success.

The Cedar Park, Texas-based company has since shared a video of the lander’s nail-biting descent just north of the moon’s equator.

Blue Ghost will spend the next week collecting samples, drilling into the subsurface and capturing high-definition imagery.

Lunar update

The Athena lander also made it to the moon, after descending near the lunar south pole on Thursday in hopes of conducting a water-finding mission.

Initially, Intuitive Machines was scrambling to determine the spacecraft’s orientation. But images from Athena’s suite of cameras helped confirm that the mission ended prematurely, with the lander lying on its side inside a crater.

The lander is 820 feet (250 meters) from the target landing site of Mons Mouton, a flat-topped mountain, the Houston-based company said.

Before powering down, Athena briefly operated and transmitted data, making it the “southernmost lunar landing and surface operations ever achieved,” according to the company.

Back to the future

Meet the woolly mouse, genetically modified to have several woolly mammoth-like traits.

Engineered by Colossal Biosciences, the mice have curly whiskers and hair that grows three times longer than that of typical lab mice.

Colossal is attempting to resurrect mammoths and other extinct creatures, and the mice will enable its team to test links between specific genetic sequences and physical traits that enabled the giants to endure bitterly cold environments, according to the private Dallas company.

But the new study doesn’t address whether the modified mice are actually tolerant of the cold, said Robin Lovell-Badge, head of the Stem Cell Biology and Developmental Genetics Laboratory at The Francis Crick Institute in London.

“As it is, we have some cute looking hairy mice, with no understanding of their physiology, behaviour, etc,” Lovell-Badge said via email.

Force of nature

The adventure of the world’s biggest iceberg, known as A23a, may have come to an end after it spent five years wandering the Southern Ocean near Antarctica and, for a time, spinning around an undersea mountain.

The “megaberg,” weighing 1.1 trillion tons (nearly 1 trillion metric tonnes) and slightly smaller than Rhode Island, ran aground on the island of South Georgia in the southern Atlantic Ocean.

“Nutrients stirred up by the grounding and from its melt may boost food availability for the whole regional ecosystem, including for charismatic penguins and seals,” said Andrew Meijers, an oceanographer at the British Antarctic Survey.

Now, scientists are trying to predict what will happen to A23a next, and what impact the iceberg will have if it splits into pieces.

A long time ago

Archaeologists have uncovered a cache of tools that ancient human ancestors crafted from elephant and hippopotamus bones 1.5 million years ago in Olduvai Gorge, known as the “Cradle of Humankind,” in Tanzania.

The unexpected discovery makes these the oldest known bone tools by about 1 million years. The 27 bone fragments appear to have been systematically sharpened and shaped using stone.

Researchers believe our early human ancestors took the same sophisticated techniques they used to make stone tools and applied them to carefully selected limb bones from large animals.

The finding suggests that hominins were capable of critical thinking and innovative craftsmanship, but scientists are still trying to figure out who exactly made the tools.

Explorations

Let your curiosity ascend to new heights with these stories:

— For the second time this year, SpaceX’s megarocket Starship exploded midflight during a test mission, disrupting air traffic and raining down flaming debris that was captured on video by onlookers in the Caribbean.

— The narwhal is often called the “unicorn of the sea” because of its signature spiral tusk. Now, scientists have recorded the first video evidence revealing some surprising ways the Arctic whales use their tusks, including for playful behavior.

— The twin Voyager probes are each turning off a science instrument to conserve power and prevent both historic missions from ending within a few months.

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