A new study shows four distinct compositional regions within and around the Moon’s largest impact basin. The findings could help guide future exploration of the basin. Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

Scientists have long wanted to retrieve rock samples from the Moon’s South Pole-Aitken basin, and a new study could be helpful in locating an ideal landing site. A detailed study of a giant impact crater on the Moon’s far side could provide a roadmap for future lunar explorers.

The study, by planetary scientists from Brown University, maps the mineralogy of the South Pole-Aitken (SPA) basin, a gash in the lunar surface with a diameter of ~2,500 kilometers (1,550 miles)...

PCN nanolayers under sunlight can split water. Credit: Nannan Meng /Tianjin University

One of the major challenges of the energy transition is to supply energy even when the sun is not shining. Hydrogen production by splitting water with the help of sunlight could offer a solution. Hydrogen is a good energy storage medium and can be used in many ways. However, water does not simply split by itself. Catalysts are needed, for instance Platinum, which is rare and expensive. Research teams the world over are looking for more economical alternatives. Now a team headed by Dr. Tristan Petit from the HZB, together with colleagues led by Prof. Bin Zhang from Tianjin University, Tianjin, China, has made important progress using a well-known class of metal-free photocatalysts.

Bin Zhang and his team ...

Mouse (left) and human (right) alveolar progenitor cells grow into large lung organoids in culture, and make multiple types of epithelial cells including gas exchange type 1 cells (red) and surfactant-producing type 2 cells (green). Credit: The lab of Ed Morrisey, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania.

Implications for new approaches to repair damaged lung disease. Researchers have identified a lung stem cell that repairs the organ’s gas exchange compartment, according to a new study from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. They isolated and characterized these progenitor cells from mouse and human lungs and demonstrated they are essential to repairing lung tissue damaged by severe influenza and other respiratory ailments.

The development of...

Pattern of radio waves on the sky caused by the combination of radiation from the first stars and the effect of dark matter. Blue regions are those where the dark matter cooled down the ordinary matter most strongly. If a similar pattern is detected with new radio telescopes over the next few years, this will confirm that the first stars have revealed the dark matter. Credit: Prof. Rennan Barkana.

Discovery offers first direct proof that dark matter exists and that it is made up of low-mass particles. A team of astronomers led by Prof...