Highlights of the week of August 28 — September 3
The question of whether water will be found on the Moon has been on the minds of scientists since the successful landing of the Indian lunar module. At the same time, a huge lottery jackpot is won in Europe, and the world focuses on finding Paul McCartney's guitar.
Winning for life
The organizers of the EuroMillions lottery announced that the jackpot of more than 100 million euros was drawn on Friday, September 1st. The lucky winner of the main prize was a resident of France. The total prize was 109,268,140 euros.
Of course, according to the law, there will be taxes to be paid to the state, but we can already assume that the winnings will be enough for a comfortable life. By the way, this is not the biggest prize in lottery history.
The biggest jackpot went to a British resident in 2022 - 230 million euros. In 2021, another French citizen won 220 million euros, and another British citizen won 215 million euros in 2022.
McCartney's missing guitar
The Lost Bass Project is launching a global campaign to find Paul McCartney's instrument. The iconic musician and former Beatles member bought a Höfner bass for 30 pounds sterling in Hamburg in 1961.
Songs like Love Me Do and She Loves You feature the sound of this bass. However, 8 years after the purchase, in 1969, the legendary instrument disappeared. Since then, no one knows where it is. Of course, McCartney did not stop playing and used other instruments, but as the musician himself said, would not mind returning the lost one.
The Search Project has teamed up with Höfner and several journalists to give everyone the opportunity to take part in the investigation and try to track down the legendary instrument and return it to where it should be.
Mysteries of the Moon's south pole
The Vikram lunar module has done what no one else on the planet has ever done - successfully landed on the cold and desolate south pole of the Moon. It is a place that could open the eyes of scientists not only to the secrets that the closest celestial body to our planet holds but also to many of the mysteries of the cosmos.
The lunar south pole is a rather desolate place. Due to the slight tilt of our satellite's axis, it is almost always semi-dark and the sun's rays fall almost horizontally. The luminary itself is very low above the horizon. This creates a bizarre and deceptive play of shadows on the lunar surface. It is these shadows that pose the greatest threat to the lunar modules. They interfere with the accurate assessment of conditions and trajectories for maneuvers.
But India's Chandrayaan-3 mission managed to land its vehicle more than a month after it was launched from the Earth. The Pragyaan lunar rover began its journey at a speed of about one centimeter per second and has already sent the results of its first study back to Earth. It turns out that in this place the temperature on the surface is about 50 ° C, but at a depth of only 8 centimeters - already -10 ° C. The nature of this phenomenon scientists have yet to unravel.
The module also analyzed the soil and found that it contains sulfur, aluminum, calcium, iron, titanium, manganese, chromium, and oxygen. Most interesting, however, are the craters. Due to the peculiarities of the location, the bottom of the craters is never illuminated by the sun. It is the hypothesis of researchers that the craters could be the storage of ice that was formed billions of years ago.
Either way, the presence of ice could lead to a new milestone in space exploration. Ice can be split into hydrogen and oxygen, providing fuel for rockets and air for lunar settlers. Speaking of the latter, in 2025, NASA plans to land humans on the lunar surface for the first time in half a century as part of its Artemis III mission.
