Science & More

The Moon contains an enormous amount of oxygen—but it isn’t floating in the atmosphere. About 45% of lunar regolith is oxygen by mass, chemically locked inside minerals and glass.

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🧪 According to an estimate by soil scientist John Grant, one cubic meter of lunar regolith contains about 1,389 pounds of oxygen. The exact amount that could actually be recovered would depend on the composition of the soil and the efficiency of the extraction process.

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🌌 The original calculation assumes that the upper roughly 33 feet of lunar regolith across the Moon could be processed and that essentially all of its oxygen could be recovered. Under those idealized assumptions, the amount of oxygen is theoretically enough to support around 8 billion people for roughly 100,000 years.

SpaceX’s Starship achieved a major milestone on September 28, 2026, reaching Earth orbit for the first time during Flight 14. The mission launched from Starbase, Texas, United States marking the first orbital flight in Starship’s test program.

🔥 The flight wasn’t without problems. One Raptor engine on the Super Heavy booster shut down during the initial ascent, while a Raptor vacuum engine on the Starship upper stage also shut down earlier than planned. The vehicle’s remaining engines compensated well enough for the mission to continue.

🛰️ Starship then performed its first successful orbit-insertion burn and deployed 26 next-generation Starlink V3 satellites. Contact was established with all 26 satellites after deployment.

🌎 The mission was later shortened as a precaution because of the earlier engine issue. Starship successfully performed its first deorbit burn before reentering Earth’s atmosphere and splashing down in the northern Pacific Ocean.

🚨For the first time, astronomers have traced radio signals directly to a planet beyond our Solar System. The source is Beta Pictoris b, a young gas giant roughly 64 light-years away and around 10–12 times the mass of Jupiter.

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🔭 Using South Africa’s MeerKAT radio telescope, researchers detected repeating radio bursts between 0.85 and 3.5 gigahertz. By comparing the signals with precise measurements of the planet’s position, its host star, and distant quasars, they determined that the emission came from the planet itself—not its star.

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⚡ The signals are strongly circularly polarized, pointing to auroral radio emissions generated by charged particles interacting with the planet’s magnetic field. This process, known as electron cyclotron maser instability, also produces radio emissions from planets such as Jupiter.

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Elon Musk says SpaceX could potentially build a self-growing lunar city in less than 10 years, using frequent Moon launches to rapidly expand the settlement. It is an ambitious stated goal—not a guaranteed timeline.

The idea is to use Starship as a high-capacity, reusable transportation system to repeatedly deliver people, equipment, habitats, and supplies to the lunar surface.

🚀 Musk says the Moon offers a major logistical advantage over Mars. According to him, missions to the Moon can be launched roughly every 10 days, while favorable Earth–Mars launch opportunities occur about every 26 months. The shorter distance and faster launch cycle would allow SpaceX to iterate and expand lunar infrastructure much more rapidly.

🏗️ The “self-growing” concept means that the lunar settlement would gradually expand its own capabilities rather than depend entirely on Earth. SpaceX has described using lunar resources and manufacturing to support a permanent presence, including potential production…