(CNN) After more than 50 years of silence, the moon is becoming a destination for space travelers again.
The public will soon learn the names of the four astronauts who will venture on a journey around the moon next year aboard the Artemis II rocket. The three Americans and one Canadian, to be unveiled April 3 by NASA, will fly farther than any humans who traveled during the Apollo missions.
The selection process remains secretive, but the astronaut pool is much more diverse than it was decades ago.
As alluded to in Tom Wolfe’s 1979 book on the space race, each crew member must embody “the right stuff”—demonstrate the traits of a good teammate and effective communicator who expects the unexpected.
And when the Artemis III astronauts take things a step further by landing on the moon possibly as early as 2025, they’ll need something else: the right suit.
Defying gravity
Axiom Chief Engineer Jim Stein wears the new spacesuit during the Axiom Space Artemis III Lunar Spacesuit event at Space Center Houston on March 15.
This week, NASA and Axiom Space unveiled the new space suit that will be worn by the first woman and the first person of color to walk on the moon.
The Artemis III crew will aim to land on the unexplored moon’s south pole, home to cold, permanently shadowed regions where the ice has been frozen for billions of years.
The recreated suit allows for greater mobility and includes extra insulated boots and other innovations that should make exploring the lunar surface easier. And it’s about time – the spacesuits worn by American astronauts haven’t been upgraded since the space shuttle program was active.
The prototype of the new design Axiom Space revealed looks black, blue and orange. However, the actual suits will be the traditional white ones from the Apollo days to protect the astronauts from wild temperature fluctuations.
Dino-mite!
Dinosaurs were some of the largest creatures to roam the Earth. Now researchers have discovered one that broke records among giants.
A dino called Mamenchisaurus sinocanadorum once enjoyed munching on the leafy green trees—which it could easily reach because the creature had a massive neck longer than a school bus.
The sauropod’s 49.5-foot-long (15.1-meter-long) neck, the longest of any known dinosaur, allowed it to stand still and eat for hours.
But how did Mamenchisaurus manage not to feel weighed down by such an extreme move? The secret was in its air-filled bones.
The wonder
A newly discovered orchid species was found in Japan.
An astonishing species of orchid has recently been discovered blooming in rural gardens and suburbs on balcony plants in Japan.
The rare find, with delicate pink and white flowers that appear to be spun glass, belongs to a group of orchids called Spiranthes, or “lady’s lures.”
Scientists were able to distinguish this orchid from others in its family because the flowers bloomed earlier and the plant has smooth rather than hairy stems.
Other worlds
When a NASA mission scientist recently revisited 1991 images of Venus taken by the Magellan spacecraft, he noticed something unusual. Two pictures of the same feature taken months apart appeared drastically different.
Eight months after Magellan’s first pass, a vent on one of the planet’s largest volcanoes had nearly doubled in size and was filled with a lake of lava.
The change reveals never-before-seen evidence of volcanic activity on the surface of Venus, something future missions could follow up on within a decade.
Meanwhile, the search for water on Mars has turned up evidence of a recent glacier that existed near the red planet’s warm equator.
The glacier is no longer present. But researchers discovered a crusty layer of salt that preserved surprising details about the chunk of ice — and it’s right in an area where humans may eventually land on Mars.
Secrets of the sea
A huge mass of seaweed is headed for the coast of Florida and elsewhere in the Gulf of Mexico.
“Watch out for the blob, it crawls / And jumps and slides and slides / across the floor!”
These dramatic lyrics are from the theme song to the 1958 movie “The Blob,” but they also serve as a warning about a huge mass coming across the ocean. A tangled ball of sargassum seaweed that stretches more than 5,000 miles (8,047 kilometers) has formed in the Atlantic Ocean.
The floating blob — which may be the largest ever — could dump foul-smelling clumps of seaweed on beaches in Florida and elsewhere along the Gulf of Mexico this summer.
The unprecedented phenomenon could pose serious risks to both humans and marine life.
The kelp mass provides a fantastic habitat for fish and other sea creatures, but it can also create dead zones – and even release toxic gas when it hits land.
Discoveries
Prepare to have your mind blown:
– It can be scarier than the blob. Scientists found “terrifying” rocks made from plastic waste on Brazil’s volcanic Trindade Island.
– The remains of a Roman aristocrat were found buried with her jewelery in a lead-lined coffin after archaeologists discovered a hidden cemetery in northern England.
— The James Webb Space Telescope captured a sparkling new image of a rare star on the verge of exploding.