The first new soil sample from the Moon in decades is helping to lay the groundwork for “extraterrestrial photosynthesis,” a potential pathway toward producing water, oxygen, and fuel using sunlight and the rocky material on the lunar surface, known as regolith, reports a new study. 

The concept is part of an array of emerging research into living off the lunar land, as nations such as the United States and China prepare to send humans to the Moon, and potentially beyond, in the coming decades. In anticipation of these missions, scientists are devising new techniques to use the available materials on alien surfaces for life support, fuel, and infrastructure—a process calledin-situ resource utilization(ISRU)—instead of hauling supplies from Earth, which would take up valuable space and weight on crewed spacecraft.

Now, researchers led by Yingfang Yao, a scientist at Nanjing University, have tried out one of these methods on real lunar regolith. The team was able to road-test “a potential strategy to build an ISRU system that can accommodate the extreme lunar environment” using soil returned from the Moon by China’s Chang’e-5 mission which, in December 2020, became the first mission to bring lunar samples back to Earth in more than four decades, according to a study published on Thursday in the journal Joule.

“Long-term survival on the Moon shall be the first milestone toward the long march of manned deep space exploration,” the team said in the study. “Maximizing the utilization of in situ lunar resources, including extreme environmental temperature (minus 173°C to 127°C) and strong solar irradiation, could help us build an extraterrestrial base on the Moon for life-supporting and spacecraft launch/manufacture proposes.”

While there are scores of studies focused on ISRU on the Moon, Yao and his colleagues had the relatively rare opportunity to use bonafide lunar samples in their work, as opposed to resorting to simulants, which are fake soils made to imitate extraterrestrial surfaces using Earth’s materials. The team’s study is also unusual in its pursuit of a process that would not rely on any energy sources from Earth, and would run only on resources available on the Moon, which they call a “zero-energy consumption’’ life support system.

To that end, the researchers experimented with extraterrestrial photosynthesis, which is more or less what it sounds like—a means of duplicating the ability of plantlife to convert water, sunlight, and nutrients into oxygen and other useful byproducts. 

Water and sunlight can both be harvested from the Moon’s surface, and the soil sample in the experiment also contained traces of iron and titanium that are useful as catalysts for this artificial photosynthetic process. Meanwhile, excess water vapor and carbon dioxide gas could also be sourced from breathing equipment used by astronauts on the Moon. With those basic materials, the team was able to produce a photosynthetic process by electrolyzing water into oxygen and hydrogen, and combining carbon dioxide with hydrogen to make methane fuel, all while only using solar energy as a power source.

While the study offers a promising roadmap to lunar life support, the team cautions that “the current catalytic performance from the Chang’e-5 lunar sample cannot fully satisfy the requirement of extraterrestrial survival,” according to the study. That said, Yao and his colleagues added that “significant improvement could be achieved via structure optimization, morphological modification, and composition engineering of the lunar sample” in the future.

“Compared with catalysts on the Earth, lunar soil or components extracted from lunar soil, as the photocatalysts for splitting water on the Moon, can greatly reduce the load and cost of spacecraft,” the researchers said in the study. “Chang’e-5’s sample provides us a great opportunity to study the lunar soil from the [extraterrestrial photosynthesis] catalytic perspective.” 

“Based on this system, we can realize a ‘‘zero-energy consumption’ environment and life support system, and truly support lunar exploration, research, and traveling,” the team concluded.

Puerto Rico’s Arecibo Observatory, which reigned as the largest single-dish telescope on Earth for more than half a century, is a site of consequential scientific discovery, a popular landmark for tourists, and a beloved setting in movies and books. That’s why the 1,000-foot-wide observatory was so widely mourned when it dramatically collapsed on December 1, 2020, following cable malfunctions that destabilized the structure during the prior months.

New documents released by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the U.S. federal agency that owned Arecibo, shed light on the difficult decisions faced by government officials after an auxiliary cable snapped and smashed through the reflector dish on August 10 of the same year. 

The documents, which were published by Government Attic in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, reveal the initial plan to respond and repair the damage, which was sent to the University of Central Florida (UCF), the institution that manages Arecibo for NSF, in the weeks following the summer cable break. 

The documents also include a letter, sent only eight days before the December collapse, that confirms NSF’s agonizing choice to conduct a controlled demolition of the telescope after a second cable malfunction made the structure too dangerous for restoration. 

That letter, dated November 23, is addressed to Elizabeth A. Klonoff, UCF’s vice president for research and dean of the college of graduate studies, and is signed by Jeff S. Leithead, NSF’s grants and agreements officer. The document confirms NSF’s later public statements that the famed observatory was shut down over safety concerns and is eerily prescient in its warning of a “catastrophic failure,” an outcome that materialized just over a week later.

“This decision is predicated on the paramount priority of human safety,” Leithead said. “NSF has evaluated multiple engineering assessments that found the telescope structure is in danger of a catastrophic failure. Its cables may no longer be capable of carrying the loads they were rated to support and attempts at repairs could put workers in harm’s way. Furthermore, the assessments found that even in the event of some stabilization actions, questions would remain as to the long-term stability of the structure.”

“Given that key stabilization and repair efforts would require workers to be on or near the telescope structure, the degree of uncertainty about the cables’ strength, and the extreme forces at work, NSF accepted the recommendation to cease recovery efforts and plan for a controlled demolition,” he continued. “We regret that this action is necessary but could not approve any scenario that might put repair crews at risk or leave Arecibo staff and visitors vulnerable, including to any hidden structural issues.”

In a note attached to the documents, a FOIA officer also clarifies that “NSF pursued a controlled decommissioning based on engineering assessments listed above,” but that “unfortunately, the telescope platform collapsed before the controlled demo could be planned and executed.”

In August, following the first cable malfunction, UCF was considering a “response plan” prepared by the Illinois-based firm Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates, Inc. (WJE). The company proposed a detailed list of measures to investigate and stabilize the structure, and emphasized that its approach to eventual repairs and rehabilitation would be informed by those initial actions.

“Using the findings of the laboratory and analytical studies, a determination as to the root cause of the failure will be prepared,” WJE principals Jonathan C. McGormley and Brian J. Santosuosso told Ramon Lugo, principal investigator of UCF’s Florida Space Institute, in their attached letter. 

“With the root cause determined, a plan to assess the remaining cables can then be developed and executed,” the pair continued. “If an accurate assessment is not possible, then a plan to provide supplemental connections at the socketed ends will be needed.” 

The decision to decommission the telescope took a few months to materialize, but it was verbally communicated to UCF on November 18, in the wake of the second cable break on November 7, according to the documents. NASA also released a detailed investigation of the cable malfunctions and ultimate collapse of the telescope on June 1, 2021.

 NSF issued an update on the site in November 2021, noting that it has consulted with the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, the Puerto Rico State Historic Preservation Office, and other interested parties, to prepare for a post-Arecibo world that still pays homage to the many contributions of the iconic observatory.  

“NSF held an Arecibo Observatory Options Workshop in the summer to assemble a diverse, multidisciplinary group of researchers, engineers, and educators with the common goal of developing and expanding the breadth of radio science in Puerto Rico, as well as facilitating the generation of innovative ideas for the future of Arecibo Observatory,” NSF said in its statement. 

At this point, the future of Arecibo remains a matter of speculation. Many proposals have been put forward to honor its legacy, including a concept for a next-generation replacement telescope. But while it's unclear what will become of this legendary site in the coming years and decades, its unique history and impact on our understanding of the universe live on, even as its wreckage is cleared away and salvaged.

NASA is poised to send a tiny satellite to an unexplored trajectory around the Moon that might one day serve as an orbital home to astronauts on a planned lunar space station known as the Gateway. 

The Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment (CAPSTONE), a microwave-sized spacecraft built by the company Advanced Space, is currently scheduled to launch into space from New Zealand on Monday, June 6. 

If all goes to plan, it will become the first spacecraft to test-drive a zone known as the near rectilinear halo orbit (NRHO), a bizarre path around the Moon sculpted by the gravitational pulls of Earth, the Moon, the Sun, and even the planet Jupiter. The special elongated orbit hits a sweet spot for the Artemis program, a major effort led by NASA that aims to return humans to the Moon’s surface this decade, more than 50 years after Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to set foot on an extraterrestrial world. 

Now, the CAPSTONE team—which includes the private space companies Advanced Space, Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems, Stellar Exploration, Inc., and Rocket Lab—await this first small step toward the giant leap envisioned by the Artemis program. In addition to flying in this mysterious orbit, the mission will also pioneer a next-generation communications platform that could greatly simplify deep space exploration. 

“It is extraordinarily fun to sit and think through what [CAPSTONE] is going to be capable of, and how we could launch spacecraft to these destinations,” said Justin Treptow, NASA’s Small Spacecraft Technology Program (SSTP) deputy program executive in the agency’s Space Technology Mission Directorate, in a call. “But to actually go out and do it is very different.”

“Ultimately, CAPSTONE is a flight test,” added Christopher Baker, who serves as the program executive for SSTP, in the same call. “The role of a flight test is to separate the real from the imagined, and that's what we're setting about doing here. I'm really looking forward to transferring that theoretical knowledge into actual operational experience.”

Whereas the historic Apollo Moon missions placed astronauts on the lunar surface for a few days, at most, the Artemis team hopes to send crews to the tantalizing south pole of the Moon for stays that may last weeks or possibly months. The Gateway, a key part of this vision, will serve as a base for astronauts and cargo, as well as an eventual staging point for missions that might venture to destinations further into deep space, such as Mars.  

Ideally, the Gateway requires an unobstructed view of Earth to enable constant communications, a trajectory that is conducive to crewed operations at the lunar south pole, and a relatively simple orbital entry process. That’s where the NRHO comes in. 

“With the NRHO, from the Earth’s surface, you can see the entire orbital path of soon-to-be CAPSTONE, and eventually Gateway,” Treptow said. “You can have uninterrupted comms with a spacecraft in that orbit because you have constant unobstructed views of it as it's going around the Moon. That’s pretty advantageous if you're doing a mission out there supporting astronauts.” 

In addition, this highly elliptical orbit traces a seven-day circuit around the Moon that extends for 1,000 miles above one lunar south pole, and then some 43,500 miles over the other pole. CAPSTONE and Gateway will follow a path designed for a distant pass over the south pole, which extends the time that a spacecraft will spend over this key region for future Artemis crews. 

“There are a couple places in space between the orbital bodies that have unique properties,” Treptow explained. “Where [the NRHO] is balanced between the lunar gravity and the Earth's gravity, it doesn't need an awful lot of propulsion to get captured into that orbit, at least if you're if you're going to it from a ballistic trajectory. It's an even lower-energy capture than doing a low-lunar orbit which allows you to either get more spacecraft there or to utilize less fuel and be more efficient.” 

All of these features make NRHO an exciting location for a space station, but there are many open questions about this unexplored realm that need to be answered before any astronauts venture there. CAPSTONE is tasked with providing this reality check, which it will hopefully accomplish after its launch on Rocket Lab’s Electron vehicle. 

Once it is in space, CAPSTONE will perform a series of clever maneuvers, including leveraging the gravitational pull of the Sun to gradually hoist it into its target altitude. The satellite is designed to feel out the NRHO for at least six months, and possibly as long as a year or two, before it intentionally crashes into the lunar surface at the end of its mission.

“Operationally, because no one has sent a vehicle into the NHRO, the Gateway operations team is going to be very interested in how well the spacecraft can determine its orbit,” Treptow said. “Because there's so many small forces that are coming into play, being able to accurately know where you are and what direction you're going in—your position and velocity—is really critical to being able to stay on the NRHO pathway and not falling out of it. The resolution that you have on your position and velocity allows you to more carefully use your propellant so you can have a longer lifespan in that orbit.”

In addition to paving the way for Gateway, CAPSTONE is also equipped with a technology demonstration called the Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System (CAPS) that will test out software that determines the satellite’s position in space without relying on tracking stations on Earth. This is part of an effort within NASA and other organizations to develop an autonomous navigation system that could revolutionize communications for deep space missions far beyond our planet.

“This mission has been something we've been working on here for two-and-a-half years,” Baker said. “Partnering with our commercial partners on it has been a fast-paced, risk-tolerant activity and it's come down to a couple of weeks here before we see it on its first step into conducting its operation.”

“We're looking forward to learning as much as we can from it,” he concluded. 

If you’ve ever snuck morsels of food to a dog under the table, you might have something in common with the people who built Stonehenge some 4,500 years ago in the Neolithic period, according to scientists who found parasites in ancient poops near this famous monument in England.

The discovery of these parasites in coprolites, the term for fossilized feces, suggests that humans and their dogs ate under-cooked cattle organs—like liver, lungs, or intestines—during feasts at Durrington Walls, a Neolithic village about two miles from Stonehenge.   

Researchers led by Piers Mitchell, an archaeologist at the University of Cambridge, said the parasitic worm eggs found in the coprolites represent a “key discovery due to the important nature of the site” and also offer “the earliest evidence for parasite infection in Britain where we can be confident of the species of the hosts,” according to a study published on Thursday in the journal Parasitology. 

“Until now, our evidence for how Neolithic people ate farm animals was from the cut marks on animal bone which showed they had sliced off the meat from the bones,” Mitchell said in an email. “This study shows for the first time that the people and their dogs must have also been eating the internal organs of these animals too.”

Human coprolite from Durrington Walls. Image: Lisa-Marie Shillito

Mitchell and his colleagues set out to examine these coprolites in part because there is “no data at all for parasites affecting people in Neolithic Britain,” according to the new study. This scarcity of evidence for parasitic infection in Britain during this period, which lasted from about 4,000 years to 6,300 years ago, stands in contrast to voluminous parasitic data in Neolithic coprolites found across Europe, at sites where human feces was more readily preserved. 

“In the Neolithic period, the toilet had not yet been invented, so we have to look for other ways to find preserved human feces,” Mitchell explained. “Most of the research into parasites in Neolithic Europe comes from lakeside villages built on stilts, and the parasite eggs are preserved nicely in the mud around these houses. In Britain we don't have lots of Neolithic lakeside villages, and so the evidence for intestinal parasites is much harder to find.”

To fill this gap in the record, Mitchell and his colleagues turned to Durrington Walls, one of the largest and most important settlements in Neolithic England. Excavations at the site have unearthed pottery, tools, and a garbage heap containing an astonishing 38,000 animal bones—the remnants of vibrant winter feasts enjoyed by seasonal workers who built Stonehenge. This amazing trash-pile includes evidence that cows were herded across more than 60 miles to these village feasts, while pigs were sometimes brought from locations that were hundreds of miles away, demonstrating that Stonehenge attracted people from vast distances. 

Now, Mitchell and his colleagues have added even more detail to the portrait of Neolithic life at Durrington Walls by liquifying small portions of 19 coprolites from the site, and hunting for parasites with a microsieve. The researchers thought they might find signs of direct parasitic infections in human and dog hosts, but were intrigued when instead, they discovered nematode eggs associated with farm animals in four human coprolites, and one dog coprolite, indicating that the people and their pets were consuming infected organs of livestock.

“We were surprised by the excellent quality of the eggs we did find, since they were 4,500 years old and we expected they might be damaged or partly decomposed,” Mitchell said. “We were also surprised that most of the eggs we found were not from worms that had infected the people living at Durrington Walls, but were eggs of parasites that infected the cattle that these people were eating.”

Moreover, the presence of the worm eggs in the dog coprolite “would suggest that Neolithic people treated their dogs as companion animals, unlike the herbivore animals they may have had on their farms to provide food,” Mitchell added.

In addition to the nematode eggs, the canine coprolite contained the eggs of a tapeworm associated with freshwater fish. Durrington Walls does not contain any other evidence of fish consumption at the site, so Mitchell’s team speculates that the dog may have eaten a fish elsewhere in England before traveling to the village.

The parasite eggs in these ancient poops may not be glamorous, but they are a powerful portal into the past lives of people who built one of the most famous monuments in the world, and the dogs who accompanied them. To that end, Mitchell and his colleagues plan to build on these novel findings, which they say “improve our understanding of both parasitic infection and dietary habits associated with this key Neolithic ceremonial site,” according to the study.

“It would be great to know what proportion of Neolithic people were infected by intestinal parasites, and how that compared with people living at other time periods, such as the Roman period or Medieval period,” Mitchell concluded.