China’s moon rocks are ready to be loaned out for science research

China’s Chang’e 5 spacecraft returned fresh moon rock samples late last year, but the main science of the mission is still just getting underway. Applications to borrow lunar samples delivered to Earth by Chang’e 5 in December are under review and will be decided soon, according to Jing Peng, deputy chief designer of the Chang’e-5 spacecraft system at the China Academy of Space Technology (CAST). “There was a conference one week ago in China regarding the applications for lunar samples,” Peng said, speaking on Thursday (June 17) at the Global…

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‘Giant arc’ stretching 3.3 billion light-years across the cosmos shouldn’t exist

A newly discovered crescent of galaxies spanning 3.3 billion light–years is among the largest known structures in the universe and challenges some of astronomers’ most basic assumptions about the cosmos.  The epic arrangement, called the Giant Arc, consists of galaxies, galactic clusters, and lots of gas and dust. It is located 9.2 billion light-years away and stretches across roughly a 15th of the observable universe.  Its discovery was “serendipitous,” Alexia Lopez, a doctoral candidate in cosmology at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) in the U.K., told Live Science. Lopez…

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Russia wants to send cosmonauts to China space station

Roscosmos is looking at ways to send its cosmonauts to the Chinese space station, launching from sites in either Russia or French Guiana.  During a press conference at the recently concluded Global Space Exploration Conference (GLEX) in St. Petersburg, Russia, on June 15, Dmitry Rogozin, director general of Roscosmos, revealed that Russia is in discussions with China about crewed flights to the Chinese space station. Rogozin, in response to a question from Aviation Week about potentially launching cargo or crew to China’s new orbital outpost, said, “We are planning to…

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