China pulls rocks from the moon - why is that exciting?

For decades, nobody was particularly interested in our closest neighbor in space.

After all, the American "Apollo" astronauts visited him a long time ago and brought 382 kilograms of rock samples to Earth.

Some moonstones are still being researched today.

I was able to see it at the University of Münster last year.

Many of the "Apollo" samples are not even open to this day.

Maybe we just know enough about the moon already?

I do not think so.

An exciting space mission could soon prove that to us.

After the spectacular landing on the back of the moon last year, another Chinese probe successfully touched down on the moon this week.

"Chang'e 5" is supposed to bring about two kilograms of rock to earth.

For China, the mission is further proof of its own technological capabilities - and the next missions will follow: a probe is scheduled to land on Mars in February, and a permanent space station in Earth orbit is in progress, plus robots at the southern lunar pole, and later even an inhabited outpost .

The Americans also want to go back to the satellite.

Still-President Donald Trump had given NASA the order to allow Americans to land there again by 2024.

Both parties in Congress support the project.

Icon: enlarge

Moon surface as recorded by the Chang'e-5 lunar probe

Photo: China National Space Administration / AFP

Of course, the ambitions of the Chinese and Americans in space are also a struggle for supremacy on earth.

But it would be wrong to dismiss it as pure political powerhouse.

Because the missions are also extremely interesting from a scientific point of view.

The rock samples from "Chang'e 5" are likely to be up to two billion years younger than anything geologists know about the moon.

This leads us to expect fundamental new insights: the history of the moon might have to be rewritten over hundreds of millions of years.

That it is not just about world power behavior is also shown by the fact that the next trips to the moon are to be international projects.

Both Chinese and Americans assert that they want others to participate.

This is an opportunity for technologically capable Europeans.

Because they alone could not bring crews to the moon in the foreseeable future because they would not get the billions required.

As a travel partner, things get cheaper - but no less exciting.

New European astronauts are expected to be recruited in the coming year.

If one of them landed on the moon at some point, it would certainly give young people a boost in their enthusiasm for science and technology.

And show how exciting the supposedly boring moon is.

Your Christoph Seidler

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Abstract

My reading recommendations this week:

• Let's stay in space a little longer.

  Astronomers have observed an object near Earth that they believe was part of a rocket launched 54 years ago.

  It's a reminder of a pretty screwed up moon mission called "Surveyor 2".

  For a short time, the scrap part is itself an artificial moon on our planet - before it disappears into space again.

  It will visit us again in 2036.

  Read more about it here.

• Divers have made a fascinating find in the Geltinger Bucht near Flensburg.

  They were actually looking for ghost nets.

  These are abandoned fishing nets that can become deadly traps for marine animals.

  In doing so, however, a legendary Enigma encryption machine from World War II literally went online.

  Now the find is being researched.

  My colleague Jörg Römer wrote down the whole story for you. 

• It is a world premiere: the US start-up Eat Just is allowed to offer cell-grown chicken for sale for the first time in Singapore: chicken nuggets from the bioreactor.

  The company wants to charge as much for this as would be due for conventional chicken in a luxury restaurant.

  The price is expected to fall in the coming years.

  My colleague Julia Merlot describes that for the consumer acceptance of laboratory meat, above all, the taste should be decisive.

• Research is also being carried out on fish-free fish.

  More precisely, of herbal alternatives.

  But they should taste as if a fisherman had just pulled them out of the net somewhere in the world.

  Can that work?

  Here too, that much is certain, besides the price, the taste will decide.

• And once again into space: to this day I have had difficulty imagining dark matter.

  And quite obviously I am not alone in this - there is about five times as much of it in the universe as of our "normal" matter.

  For decades researchers have been trying to find out what dark matter actually consists of.

  It is not clear if they will ever find an answer.

  That doesn't diminish the fascination, as you can read here.

Quiz*

1. How many arms do squids have?

2. With how many volts can an electric eel give off electrical surges?

3. What is the oldest pet that is kept without any use?

* You can find the answers at the bottom of the newsletter.

Picture of the week 

Icon: enlargePhoto: Cheng-Chang Lee

It

is easy to get

, because the offspring of these harmless sharks, which live in a depth of 100 to 200 meters under the sea, grow clearly visible in transparent egg capsules around eight centimeters long.

The animals, first discovered off the coast of the Malaysian state of Sarawak, bear their name because they can swell up when they swallow seawater.

The ability to increase body girth is used to drive away predators.

footnote  

Scientists at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, observed

arm movements in video recordings of ten California two-point octopuses.

They discovered that each of the eight octopus arms can not only bend, lengthen, shorten and twist, but that combinations of these movements are also possible - for example, when an octopus arm twists clockwise or counterclockwise while bending.

The arms become a multi-function tool that the octopuses can use to crawl, camouflage themselves, hunt prey, fight and mate.

SPIEGEL + recommendations from science 

• Archeology: Researchers argue over the spectacular thesis of Europe's first war

• Coronavirus: the vaccine is coming - but is it also safe? 

• Geniuses: The new Nobel Prize winner Roger Penrose is turning common theories of physics upside down

* Quiz Answers

1) While an octopus has eight arms, squids have ten, two of which are significantly longer than the others.

2) With up to 860 volts.

For comparison: a normal household socket has a voltage of up to 230 volts.

3) The goldfish.

It was created by breeding in China about 1000 years ago.