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Chinese Probe Lands On Moon To Gather Lunar Samples

2021-01-01T06:39:54Z

RudyQuam3207:

A Long March 5 rocket carrying China's Chang'e-5 lunar probe launches from the Wenchang Space Center on China's southern Hainan Island in November 2020 A Chinese space probe on Wednesday began drilling on the surface of the Moon hours after landing, in an ambitious attempt to bring back the first lunar samples in four decades. Beijing has poured billions into its military-run space programme, with hopes of having a crewed space station by 2022 and of eventually sending humans to the Moon. The Chang'e-5 spacecraft -- named for the mythical Chinese moon goddess -- touched down on the near side of the Moon on Tuesday, and is now gathering samples from the surface, the China National Space Administration said. Chang'e-5's goal is to collect lunar rocks and soil to help scientists learn about the Moon's origins, formation and volcanic activity. If the return journey is successful, China will be only the third country to have retrieved samples from the Moon, following the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1960s and 1970s. Chang'e-5's goal is to collect lunar rocks and soil to help scientists learn about the Moon's origins, formation and volcanic activity This is the first such attempt since the Soviet Union's Luna 24 mission in 1976. Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying on Wednesday described the mission as "revolutionary in increasing human understanding of the history of the Moon." The probe had finished drilling for samples by Wednesday morning and [https://www.kynghidongduong.vn/tours/du-lich-trung-quoc-gia-re/ tour trung quốc] is now "gathering surface samples as planned", China's National Space Administration said. The spacecraft was launched from the country's southern Hainan province last week and entered lunar orbit on Saturday after a 112-hour journey. State broadcaster CCTV showed rows of scientists at mission control, wearing blue jackets emblazoned with Chinese flags, monitoring the probe then clapping after it successfully touched down. A huge screen at the front of the room displayed images sent by the probe of the grey lunar surface. A separate state media video released later showed the probe drilling into the moon's surface. - 'No easy task' - The spacecraft plans to collect two kilograms (4.5 pounds) of material in a previously unexplored area known as Oceanus Procellarum -- or "Ocean of Storms" -- a vast lava plain, according to the science journal Nature. China Moon probe The probe was designed to both get samples from the Moon's surface, as well as drill a two-metre (7-foot) deep hole and gather specimens from there, to ensure a diverse collection. State media said the craft was preparing for "around 48 hours" of tasks on the lunar surface. The samples will then be returned to Earth in a capsule programmed to land in northern China's Inner Mongolia region in December, according to US space agency NASA. Back on Earth, Chinese scientists are using footage from Chang'e-5 to reconstruct patches of the Moon's surface in a lab to better guide the probe's movements, CCTV said. Footage from the broadcaster showed lab staff from the China Academy of Space Technology wearing augmented reality glasses and using shovels to shape a sand pit according to contours of the moon's surface. The mission is technically challenging and involves several innovations not seen during previous attempts at collecting moon rocks, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics researcher Jonathan McDowell told AFP last month. Thomas Zurbuchen, a top official at NASA's science mission directorate, congratulated China on the landing. "This is no easy task," he tweeted. "When the samples collected on the Moon are returned to Earth, we hope everyone will benefit from being able to study this precious cargo that could advance the international science community." - 'Space dream' - Under President Xi Jinping, plans for China's "space dream", as he calls it, have been put into overdrive. Chang'e-5 will collect material from a previously unexplored area of the Moon known as Oceanus Procellarum Beijing is looking to finally catch up with the US and Russia after years of belatedly matching their space milestones. China launched its first satellite in 1970, [https://www.kynghidongduong.vn/tours/du-lich-trung-quoc-gia-re/ kynghidongduong.vn] while human spaceflight took decades longer -- with Yang Liwei becoming China's first "taikonaut" in 2003. A Chinese lunar rover landed on the far side of the Moon in January 2019 in a global first that boosted Beijing's aspirations to become a space superpower. The latest probe is among a slew of ambitious targets, [https://www.kynghidongduong.vn/tours/du-lich-trung-quoc-gia-re/ tour trung quốc] which include creating a powerful rocket capable of delivering payloads [http://www.express.co.uk/search/heavier/ heavier] than those NASA and private rocket firm SpaceX can handle, a lunar base, and a permanently crewed space station. China's taikonauts and scientists have also talked up crewed missions to Mars. burs-gle-tjx/rox/oho

AP News In Brief At 9:04 P.m. EST

2020-12-31T20:13:45Z

RudyQuam3207:

Disputing Trump, Barr says no widespread election fraud WASHINGTON (AP) - Disputing President Donald Trump´s persistent, baseless claims, Attorney General William Barr declared Tuesday the U.S. Justice Department has uncovered no evidence of widespread voter fraud that could change the outcome of the 2020 election. Barr's comments, in an interview with the The Associated Press, contradict the concerted effort by Trump, his boss, to subvert the results of last month's voting and block President-elect Joe Biden from taking his place in the White House. Barr told the AP that U.S. attorneys and FBI agents have been working to follow up specific complaints and information they´ve received, but "to date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election." The comments, which drew immediate criticism from Trump attorneys, were especially notable coming from Barr, who has been one of the president's most ardent allies. Before the election, he had repeatedly raised the notion that mail-in voting could be especially vulnerable to fraud during the coronavirus pandemic as Americans feared going to polls and instead chose to vote by mail. More to Trump's liking, Barr revealed in the AP interview that in October he had appointed U.S. Attorney John Durham as a special counsel, giving the prosecutor the authority to continue to investigate the origins of the Trump-Russia probe after Biden takes over and making it difficult to fire him. Biden hasn't said what he might do with the investigation, and his transition team didn't comment Tuesday. ___ US panel: 1st vaccines to health care workers, nursing homes NEW YORK (AP) - Health care workers and [https://www.kynghidongduong.vn/tours/du-lich-trung-quoc-gia-re/ tour trung quốc giá rẻ] nursing home residents should be at the front of the line when the first coronavirus vaccine shots become available, an influential government advisory panel said Tuesday. The panel voted 13-1 to recommend those groups get priority in the first days of any coming vaccination program, when doses are expected to be very limited. The two groups encompass about 24 million people out of a U.S. population of about 330 million. Later this month, the Food and Drug Administration will consider authorizing emergency use of two vaccines made by Pfizer and Moderna. Current estimates project that no more than 20 million doses of each vaccine will be available by the end of 2020. And each product requires two doses. As a result, the shots will be rationed in the early stages. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices will meet again at some point to decide who should be next in line. Among the possibilities: teachers, police, firefighters and workers in other essential fields such as food production and transportation; the elderly; and people with underlying medical conditions. Tuesday's action merely designated who should get shots first if a safe and effective vaccine becomes available. The panel did not endorse any particular vaccine. Panel members are waiting to hear FDA's evaluation and to see more safety and efficacy data before endorsing any particular product. ___ 'Very dark couple of weeks': Morgues and hospitals overflow Nearly 37,000 Americans died of COVID-19 in November, the most in any month since the dark early days of the pandemic, engulfing families in grief, filling newspaper obituary pages and testing the capacity of morgues, funeral homes and hospitals. Amid the resurgence, states have [http://www.newsweek.com/search/site/begun%20reopening begun reopening] field hospitals to handle an influx of patients that is pushing health care systems - and their workers - to the breaking point. Hospitals are bringing in mobile morgues. And funerals are being livestreamed or performed as drive-by affairs. Health officials fear the crisis will be even worse in coming weeks, after many Americans ignored pleas to stay home over Thanksgiving and avoid people who don´t live with them. "I have no doubt that we´re going to see a climbing death toll ... and that´s a horrific and tragic place to be," said Josh Michaud, associate director of global health policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation. "It´s going to be a very dark couple of weeks." November's toll was far lower than the 60,699 recorded in April but perilously close to the next-highest total of almost 42,000 in May, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Deaths had dropped to just over 20,000 in June after states closed many businesses and ordered people to stay at home. ___ US probing potential bribery, lobbying scheme for pardon WASHINGTON (AP) - The Justice Department is investigating whether there was a secret scheme to lobby White House officials for a pardon as well as a related plot to offer a hefty political contribution in exchange for clemency, according to a court document unsealed Tuesday. Most of the information in the 18-page court order is redacted, including the identity of the people whom prosecutors are investigating and whom the proposed pardon might be intended for. But the document from August does reveal that people are suspected of having acted to secretly lobby White House officials to secure a pardon or sentence commutation and that, in a related scheme, a substantial political contribution was floated in exchange for a pardon. As part of the investigation, more than 50 laptops, iPads and other digital devices have been seized, according to the document. The existence of the investigation was revealed in a court order from U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell, the chief judge of Washington's federal court, in which she granted investigators access to certain email communications connected to the alleged schemes that she said was not protected by attorney-client privilege. Prosecutors will be able to use that material to confront any subject or target of the investigation, the judge wrote. ___ In 2020, AP photographers captured a world in distress Behold, a world in distress: A 64-year-old woman weeps, hugging her husband as he lay dying in the COVID-19 unit of a California hospital. A crowded refugee camp in Lesbos, Greece, engulfed in flames, disgorges a string of migrants fleeing this hell on Earth. Rain-swept protesters, enraged by the death of George Floyd in police custody, rail against the system and the heavens. This is the world that Associated Press photographers captured in 2020, a world beset by every sort of catastrophe -- natural and unnatural disaster, [https://www.kynghidongduong.vn/tours/du-lich-trung-quoc-gia-re/ tour trung quốc giá rẻ] violent and non-violent conflict. And, in every corner of that world, the coronavirus. There are the living: Women cover themselves head to toe with chadors, protective clothing and gas masks to prepare a body for burial in Iran. An octogenarian couple kiss through plastic in Spain. ___ Strong start to December as S&P 500 index sets another high Wall Street kicked off December with more milestones Tuesday after a broad rally for stocks pushed the S&P 500 and Nasdaq composite to new highs. The S&P 500 gained 1.1%, with Big Tech companies and banks driving a big part of the rally. The strong opening to December follows a 10.8% surge for the broad index in November, marking its best month since April. The tech-heavy Nasdaq climbed 1.3%. Both indexes beat the record highs they set on Friday. Treasury yields also rose in another sign of optimism from investors. Stocks have been ramping higher in recent weeks as investors focus on the possibility that coronavirus vaccines could soon help usher in a fuller global economic recovery. Meanwhile, lawmakers in Washington are debating once more whether to deliver another round of coronavirus relief to the economy before President Donald Trump leaves office. "It seems like both the House and the Senate are trying to break this logjam," said Sameer Samana, senior global market strategist at Wells Fargo Investment Institute. "It seems the market is feeding off that." The S&P 500 rose 40.82 points to 3,662.45. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 185.28 points, or 0.6%, to 29,823.92. The Nasdaq climbed 156.37 points to 12,355.11. Small company stocks also added to their recent gains. The [http://photo.net/gallery/tag-search/search?query_string=Russell Russell] 2000 index picked up 16.23 points, or 0.9%, to 1,836.05. ___ Ex-Arizona politician gets 6 years in adoption scheme PHOENIX (AP) - A former Arizona politician who admitted running an illegal adoption scheme in three states involving women from the Marshall Islands was sentenced in Arkansas to six years in federal prison. It was the first of three punishments he´ll face for arranging adoptions prohibited by an international compact. Paul Petersen, a Republican who served as metro Phoenix´s assessor for six years and also worked as an adoption attorney, illegally paid women from the Pacific island nation to come to the U.S. to give up their babies in at least 70 adoptions cases in Arizona, Utah and Arkansas, prosecutors said. Marshall Islands citizens have been prohibited from traveling to the U.S. for adoption purposes since 2003 and prosecutors said Petersen's scheme lasted three years. Judge Timothy Brooks, who imposed the sentence from Fayetteville, Arkansas, [https://www.kynghidongduong.vn/tours/du-lich-trung-quoc-gia-re/ kynghidongduong.vn] said Petersen abused his position as an attorney by misleading or instructing others to lie to courts in adoptions that wouldn´t have been approved had the truth been told to them. The judge said Petersen turned what should be joyous adoption occasions into "a baby-selling enterprise." He also described Petersen's adoption practice as a "criminal livelihood" and said he ripped off taxpayers at the same time he was elected to serve them. ___ VIRUS TODAY: A deadly November, and who gets vaccine first Here's what's happening Tuesday with the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S.: THREE THINGS TO KNOW TODAY - A scientific panel is meeting to provide guidance on who should be at the front of the line when the first vaccine shots become available. Health care workers and nursing home residents will be among the first to get the vaccine. - More than 36,000 people died from COVID-19 in November in the United States. The monthly number is not as high as the dark days of April and May but still a sign of the deadly turn the pandemic has taken this fall. - Field hospitals are opening up again as hospital capacity runs out. Rhode Island and New York are among the places to open such facilities in recent days. ___ China spacecraft lands on moon to bring rocks back to Earth BEIJING (AP) - A Chinese spacecraft landed on the moon to bring back lunar rocks to Earth for the first time since the 1970s, the government announced. The China National Space Administration said Chang´e 5 "successfully landed" at its designated site shortly after 11 p.m. (1500 GMT) Tuesday after making a powered descent from its orbiter. It published images of the barren scene at the landing site, including where the lander's shadow can be seen. The lander was launched Nov. 24 from the tropical southern island of Hainan. It is the latest venture by a Chinese space program that sent its first astronaut into orbit in 2003, has a spacecraft en route to Mars and aims eventually to land a human on the moon. Plans call for the lander to spend about two days drilling into the lunar surface and collecting 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds) of rocks and debris. The sample will be lifted up into orbit and transferred to a return capsule for the trip to Earth, setting down on the grasslands of Inner Mongolia around the middle of the month. If it succeeds, it will be the first time scientists have obtained fresh samples of lunar rocks since a Soviet probe in the 1970s. Those samples are expected to be made available to scientists from other nations, although its unclear how much access NASA will have, given tight U.S. government restrictions on space cooperation with China. ___ 'Big Sky' producers recognize Native American criticism LOS ANGELES (AP) - Native American tribes and advocates are condemning "Big Sky," a Montana-set ABC drama, for ignoring the history of violence inflicted on Indigenous women and instead making whites the crime victims. They also have assailed the network and the show's producers for failing to respond to their complaints, which they first made known in a Nov. 17 letter. On Tuesday, the makers of "Big Sky" broke their silence. "After meaningful conversations with representatives of the Indigenous community, our eyes have been opened to the outsized number of Native American and Indigenous women who go missing and are murdered each year, a sad and shocking fact," the executive producers said in a statement to The Associated Press. "We are grateful for this education and are working with Indigenous groups to help bring attention to this important issue," according to the statement. The producers include David E. Kelley ("Big Little Lies," "The Undoing") and novelist C.J. Box, whose 2013 book "The Highway" was adapted for the series. Created by Kelley, "Big Sky" stars Katheryn Winnick and Kylie Bunbury as private detectives searching for two white sisters on a road trip who go missing and turn out to be part of a pattern of abductions.

Yao Ming Is Now A Chinese Ambassador To Mars

2020-12-31T03:01:06Z

RudyQuam3207: Created page with "id="article-body" class="row" section="article-body"> [ Enlarge Image] Jim Rogash, Getty..."

id="article-body" class="row" section="article-body"> [ Enlarge Image] Jim Rogash, Getty Images Retired basketball star Yao Ming's new role is simply out of this world. The former Houston Rockets Centre is to become China's new "Ambassador to Mars," according to the [ South China Morning Post]. It's not yet known whether China's most famous athlete may be expected to [ team up with the Looney Tunes] to defeat aliens in a basketball tournament. For now, [https://www.kynghidongduong.vn/tours/du-lich-trung-quoc-gia-re/ tour trung quoc] Ming's main task is to help publicize China's plan to send a spacecraft to Mars by 2020. China's Mars 2020 mission, [ first announced] earlier this year, is expected to carry a solar-powered probe to the surface of the red planet. It will use a [http://www.trainingzone.co.uk/search/Chinese-made Chinese-made] Long March-5 rocket to launch from the Wenchang Space Centre in China's Hainan province. Yao will be joined in his ambassadorial duties by 10 other Chinese luminaries, including science-fiction writer Liu Cixin, [https://www.kynghidongduong.vn/tours/du-lich-trung-quoc-gia-re/ kynghidongduong.vn] teenage boy band TFBOYS and women's Olympic gold-medal-winning volleyball team coach Lang Ping. China isn't the only one with its eyes on Mars. Elon Musk [/news/spacex-mars-elon-musk-plans-saturn-v-rocket/ late last month outlined his plan] to colonize the planet, [https://www.kynghidongduong.vn/tours/du-lich-trung-quoc-gia-re/ tour trung quoc] saying he envisions self-sustaining human civilisations on Mars in the next 40-100 years. [#comments Comments] [/crave/ Crave] [/topics/culture/ Culture] [/topics/sci-tech/ Notification on Notification off Sci-Tech]

User:RudyQuam3207

2020-12-31T03:00:57Z

RudyQuam3207: Created page with "Hi! My name is Rudy and I'm a 18 years old girl from United Kingdom. Also visit my web site ... [https://www.kynghidongduong.vn/tours/du-lich-trung-quoc-gia-re/ tou..."

Hi! My name is Rudy and I'm a 18 years old girl from United Kingdom. Also visit my web site ... [https://www.kynghidongduong.vn/tours/du-lich-trung-quoc-gia-re/ tour trung quoc]