World Insights Unleashed"

Just over a week ago on August 10th, Russia launched a Soyuz rocket carrying a special payload. On board was the country’s first lunar lander in nearly 50 years, since the Luna 24 mission in 1976. Unfortunately, reports are now coming out that the lander crashed into the Moon and the mission has failed. Starting yesterday, an emergency situation was reported in lunar orbit not long before the touchdown attempt. The original plan was to launch on the 10th and land safely on the Moon between the 21st and 23rd, only days away. However, a problem came up during an engine burn that didn’t allow a specific maneuver to occur. Roscosmos then later reported that they had lost contact with the lander, but were trying to reach it and get any type of signal back. By now, the agency is confident that the lander was destroyed, and is now working to determine exactly what went wrong. This is quite the blow to the agency and program which was the first attempt to revive it after decades. Here I will go more in-depth into the exact flight profile, what went wrong, the events that led to this, and more.

Russia's Luna-25 spacecraft has crashed into the moon after spinning out of control. This happened hours after it experienced what the space agency described as an 'abnormal situation'. The craft was preparing for manoeuvres before landing. The mission was launched earlier this month, as part of a race to explore the south pole of our planet’s closest neighbour. India's space agency says its moon-bound spacecraft will land on Wednesday as scheduled. The craft known as Chandrayaan-3, is also aiming for the south pole. The region is believed to hold large deposits of frozen water. The space agency says it has successfully performed an important operation as it prepares to land.

Here’s a big question: How did life begin on Earth? We don’t quite know, but this fundamental question is a driving force behind astrobiology research at NASA. Understanding how life originated on our planet could inform us about the potential for life to exist throughout the universe.

These planets are beautiful, mind-blowing, perhaps even a bit scary… But most importantly, they are real! These are real places in the universe.