- The Chinese not so long ago succeeded in landing on the far side of the moon. Click and scroll down to see the mysterious picture of the horizon from Yutu, China’s name for their rover, Something that looks like a hut perches in the center of the photo. While, it will take months for the rover to rove over (alliteration intended) to check it out, scientists speculate it’s likely a boulder. However, it has a perfectly cubical shape, unlikely for a boulder, but anything else would be groundbreaking excitement.
Another curiosity due to global warming is that the bottom layer of atmosphere called the troposphere around our Earth is expanding. According to to NASA: “Closest to the surface of Earth, we have the troposphere. “Tropos” means change. This layer gets its name from the weather that is constantly changing and mixing up the gases in this part of our atmosphere.”
As the world turns to electricity to slow Earth’s warming, demand increases for lithium and cobalt to power vehicle batteries, and these precious metals like all of our resources are limited. It was unclear how successful recycling the metals could be, but it turns out that the recycled products work even better than those made from the newly mined sources.
According some studies, climate change is causing animal (and plant?) species to evolve to survive in the new environment. Not surprising that some species are migrating to different habitats, bears fattening at different times of the year, and conifers shifting growth to different areas. However, it was interesting that some lizards are growing longer limbs to help them stay on leaves in stronger winds.
According to a writer for the Science Times, what astronomers are eating these days is their fingernails. The diet will continue through Christmas Eve when the James Webb telescope will launch for the dark side of the moon. Maybe it’ll beat the rover to the myserious hut. It is a bigger and better replacement for Hubble. The potential for learning more about our universe is momentous, but the fear that one of many maneuvers may go astray and put the mission in peril is considerable. Let’s hope the auspicious date of the launch will bode well. OTOH, Rudolph will be too busy to help.
Merry Christmas!
ewritessite---Eloise Hamann 