The moon is our planet\u2019s constant celestial companion, only shaded from view about once a month when its orbit takes it between Earth and the sun. <\/p>\n
Earth\u2019s biggest satellite has long been a source of awe and wonder,\u00a0inspiring the imaginations of artists and writers for millennia. The moon\u2019s gravitational pull is also the force behind ocean tides and partly why our planet has a 24-hour day. <\/p>\n
Be sure to look up this Saturday evening, when a full hunter\u2019s moon will shine in the night sky. Lucky sky-gazers in Europe, Africa, most of Asia and western Australia will also\u00a0glimpse a partial lunar eclipse, when Earth\u2019s shadow appears to take a \u201cbite\u201d out of the moon. <\/p>\n
Although the moon is Earth\u2019s nearest neighbor, many secrets remain \u2014 mysteries that could be solved by paying a visit to the lunar surface. <\/p>\n
When Apollo 17 astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt scooped up rocks and dust from the lunar surface in 1972, they unknowingly brought back the answer to one of the biggest questions about the moon: its age. <\/p>\n
More than 50 years after the sample was collected, scientists detected crystals in lunar dust that revealed the\u00a0moon is 40 million years older than previously believed. <\/p>\n
The moon was created when a Mars-size object crashed into Earth, flinging a large rocky piece into space that went into orbit around our planet. Zircon crystals formed as the moon cooled 4.46 billion years ago, and a new analysis traced them in the Apollo 17 samples. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s amazing being able to have proof that the rock you\u2019re holding is the oldest bit of the Moon we\u2019ve found so far,\u201d said Jennika Greer, a research associate in Earth sciences at the University of Glasgow. <\/p>\n
The beginnings of human life are still largely a mystery to scientists. <\/p>\n
When sperm fuses with an egg, complex processes result in tiny cells that divide and reproduce enough to become a human body with more than 30 trillion cells. <\/p>\n
But the early development of human embryos, especially within the first month, presents a big question mark scientists want to answer. <\/p>\n
Advances in stem cells are being used to\u00a0create embryo-like structures, or cells that mimic an embryo but don\u2019t result in a fetus. But these breakthroughs are raising ethical questions about how the embryos can be used in the name of science and women\u2019s health. <\/p>\n
Engineers\u00a0uncovered 125 million-year-old dinosaur footprints\u00a0beside a beachside cafe along the Isle of Wight while investigating ways to reduce coastal erosion and flooding. <\/p>\n
The three-toed prints were likely made by a mantellisaurus, an herbivorous dinosaur that lived during the early Cretaceous Period. <\/p>\n
\u201cDinosaurs existing right where our team is working brings old and new together \u2014 the modern challenges of combatting climate change with a period of time we can only imagine,\u201d said Nick Gray, the UK Environment Agency\u2019s regional flood and coastal-risk manager. <\/p>\n
Separately, the ruins of a 5,000-year-old Neolithic tomb were unearthed on Scotland\u2019s Orkney Islands. The site contained more than a dozen skeletons of men, women and children, including a pair\u00a0that seemed to be embracing. <\/p>\n
Multiple telescopes witnessed a massive cosmic explosion that released a burst of light brighter than our entire Milky Way galaxy. <\/p>\n
The explosion, called a kilonova, occurred when two neutron stars collided, releasing the\u00a0<\/strong>energetic burst of light. <\/p>\n The James Webb Space Telescope also\u00a0detected the signature of rare chemical elements\u00a0in the aftermath of the explosion, such as tellurium, which is used to tint glass, and iodine, necessary for much of life on Earth. <\/p>\n An ancient landscape has been discovered beneath the East Antarctic ice sheet, thanks to ice-penetrating radar. <\/p>\n The area, equivalent to the size of Belgium, was formed by rivers and likely resembled the hills and valleys of North Wales before\u00a0frozen layers covered it more than 14 million years ago. <\/p>\n \u201cThe land underneath the East Antarctic Ice Sheet is less well known than the surface of Mars,\u201d said Stewart Jamieson, a professor in the department of geography at Durham University in the UK. <\/p>\n Understanding the hidden, well-preserved landscape could help scientists predict the evolution of the ice sheet and how it may fare as temperatures warm in the climate crisis. <\/p>\n Meanwhile, declassified photos captured by Cold War-era US spy satellites have revealed\u00a0hundreds of previously unknown Roman-era forts\u00a0across Iraq and Syria, but many of the structures may have already been destroyed. <\/p>\n These new findings may surprise you: <\/p>\n \u2014 The Webb telescope spied a\u00a0never-before-seen, high-speed jet stream\u00a0racing around Jupiter\u2019s equator. <\/p>\n \u2014 Bittersweet tunes may be just what the doctor ordered to\u00a0reduce the perception of pain, according to new research. <\/p>\n \u2014 Volcanic rocks on one of the world\u2019s largest islands contain evidence that Earth\u2019s core may have been\u00a0leaking ancient helium\u00a0for millions of years. <\/p>\n\n The moon is our planet\u2019s constant celestial companion, only shaded from view about once a month when its orbit takes it between Earth and the sun. Earth\u2019s biggest satellite has long been a source of awe and wonder,\u00a0inspiring the imaginations of artists and writers for millennia. The moon\u2019s gravitational pull is also the force behind <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":10815,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-10814","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10814\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} Once upon a planet<\/h3>\n
Discoveries<\/h3>\n