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Mystery on the Dark Side of the Moon Solved
Chinese rover got close-up shot of ‘mysterious’ lunar object - It's a rock!
A Chinese rover has finally made it close enough to explore an oddly-shaped object spotted on the far side of the Moon last year. The discovery was dubbed ‘mystery hut’ online.
The image of a gray cube-shaped object on the Moon’s horizon was published by Our Space, a channel affiliated with the China National Space Administration (CNSA), early last month.
The photo was taken by Chinese rover Yutu-2 when it was traversing the large Von Karman crater. It was reported at the time that it would take two to three months for the rover to reach the object.
As Yutu-2 was making its journey, people online dubbed the object ‘mystery hut’, suggesting it could also be a ‘Moon palace’ or an alien base.
The truth was revealed on Friday, when Our Space released a close-up shot of what turned out to be a simple rock lying on the rim of a crater. The rock, nevertheless, had a peculiar shape, the publication noted, adding that the team controlling the rover from Earth dubbed it ‘Jade Rabbit’.
“It’s so underwhelming it’s brilliant,” tweeted Andrew Jones, a journalist covering China’s space program.
Yutu-2 landed on the Moon in 2019 as part of China’s Chang’e-4 mission. It is the first rover to explore the side of the Moon not visible from Earth.
In ‘NASA’s Unexplained Files', Apollo 10 Astronauts recorded a whistling sound that contained a very musical dance of frequencies and noise, while on the far side of the moon. The sounds are still unexplained more than 5 decades later.
I suspect that someone had used the tape to record noises before Appollo 10 launched, and didn't clean it. What's your guess?
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President plans to close 'gates to hell'
Burning gas crater in Karakum Desert has been one of country's main tourist attractions
Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymuhamedov has ordered his government to find a way of extinguishing an apocalyptic -looking gas crater that has been burning in the Karakum desert for the past 50 years.
The "feature" located near the village of Darvaza, some 270km from Turkmenistan’s capital of Ashgabat, is officially called ‘The Radiance of Karakum’, but the locals usually refer to it as ‘The Gates to Hell’.
The 60-meter-wide pit is man-made, formed as the result of a ground collapse during gas exploration back in 1971. It was set on fire deliberately over fears that poisonous gas could threaten people and wildlife in the area.
It was expected to burn out swiftly, but the crater is somehow still spewing flames to this day, providing for a scary but truly picturesque phenomenon.
‘The Door to Hell’ has become one of the Central Asian nation’s best-known landmarks internationally. However, tourism hasn’t exactly been booming in Turkmenistan, which is visited by fewer than 10,000 foreign guests each year.
This may have been a key consideration behind the decision to extinguish the flames by the extravagant President Berdymuhamedov, who raps, flies helicopters, drifts in race cars, and loves showing off his shooting skills. These activities have been met with some ridicule abroad.
During an online meeting with the government on Friday, he argued that the country was losing valuable natural resources, which could otherwise be sold abroad and the money used to improve the wellbeing of the Turkmen citizens. The burning gas was also harmful to the people and the environment, the head of state added.
Berdymuhamedov told the deputy PM in charge of the oil and gas industry to organize discussions with scientists, including foreign experts, to figure out how to deal with the flames.
However, it’s unclear whether this will finally shut ‘The Gates to Hell’, as the president previously issued a similar order in 2010, but it couldn’t be fulfilled.
It's in the middle of a desert, can't they just fill it in?
Man bursts into flames after being tasered
A police officer’s stun gun appeared to react with flammable hand sanitizer,
which a suspect had doused himself with during an aggressive encounter
The New York Attorney General’s office has released footage of a man who burst into flames after he was tasered by police, as part of its investigation into the man’s eventual death nearly two months after the incident.
In the October 30 surveillance footage released on Friday, 29-year-old Jason Jones could be seen acting aggressively at a police station in Catskill, New York. After staring down two police officers and turning his neck to the side, Jones stripped off his clothing, threw a boot at a table, and shouted at staff.
Jones could then be seen covering his head with hand sanitizer and approaching officers, prompting one officer to fire his Taser. Jones immediately burst into flames as the stun gun appeared to react with the flammable sanitizer, and Jones flailed around with his head on fire as officers retreated into another room.
Jones’ head continued to burn for several seconds before an officer ran out of the room and attempted to assist him, while Jones tried to grab at the officer. Though badly burnt, Jones continued to walk around the room for nearly 20 minutes before medical officials took him away on a hospital stretcher for treatment.
WARNING: GRAPHIC FOOTAGE
Whomever he got those drugs from should be held, at least partly responsible for his death.
According to the Attorney General’s office, Jones died in hospital on December 15 – nearly two months after the incident. His cause of death has not yet been revealed.
New York Attorney General Letitia James released the footage to the public on Friday “in order to increase transparency and strengthen public trust in these matters,” though she insisted that the release was “not an expression of any opinion as to the guilt or innocence of any party.”
