Science Archives - Tona Today

NASA said Thursday that the long-delayed launch of Artemis 2, the first crewed flyby mission to the Moon in more than 50 years, could come as soon as April 1.

“We are on track for a launch as early as April 1, and we are working toward that date,” Lori Glaze, a senior NASA official, told a press conference, after technical difficulties delayed a launch originally expected in February.

“It’s a test flight, and it is not without risk, but our team and our hardware are ready,” she said. “Just keep in mind we still have work” to do.

The US space agency announced in February a sudden revamp of the Artemis program, including the addition of a test mission before an eventual lunar landing.

The first launch window would be Wednesday, April 1, at 6:24 pm (2224 GMT), with several others available in the following days.

“We would anticipate on the order of about four opportunities within that six-day period,” Glaze said.

The Artemis 2 mission is meant to be the first flyby of the Moon in more than half a century.

The rocket will be crewed by three American astronauts — mission commander Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch — and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen.

After launch, NASA diagrams indicate Artemis 2 will circumnavigate Earth before leaving orbit to travel to the Moon, without landing, for a lunar flyby before returning to Earth and splashing down in the ocean.

“Exactly how close the Artemis II crew will fly to the Moon will depend on when they launch,” ranging from 4,000 to 6,000 miles (6,437 to 9,656 km) above the lunar surface, because the Moon will “be in a different spot for each of the possible launch dates.”

The first Artemis flew much closer to the Moon — 80 miles above the surface — but NASA said Artemis 2 will still go “tens of thousands of miles closer than any human has been in more than 50 years.”

“At this distance the Moon will appear to the crew to be about the size of a basketball held at arm’s length.”

The mission is to be followed by Artemis 3 with the goal of “rendezvous in low-Earth orbit” of at least one lunar lander.

The next phase, Artemis 4, aims for a lunar landing in early 2028, after President Donald Trump announced during his first term that he wanted Americans to once again set foot on the Moon. (Punch)

Scientists said Wednesday they have turned human skin cells into eggs and fertilised them with sperm in the lab for the first time – a breakthrough that is hoped to one day let infertile people have children.

The technology is still years away from potentially becoming available to aspiring parents, the US-led team of scientists warned.

But outside experts said the proof-of-concept research could eventually change the meaning of infertility, which affects one in six people worldwide.

If successful, the technology called in-vitro gametogenesis would allow older women or women who lack eggs for other reasons to genetically reproduce, Paula Amato, the co-author of a new study announcing the achievement, told AFP.

“It also would allow same-sex couples to have a child genetically related to both partners,” said Amato, a researcher at the Oregon Health & Science University in the United States.

Scientists have been making significant advances in this field in recent years, with Japanese researchers announcing in July that they had created mice with two biological fathers.

But the new study, published in the journal Nature Communications, marks a major advance by using DNA from humans, rather than mice.

The scientists first removed the nucleus from normal skin cells and transferred them into a donor egg, which had its nucleus removed. This technique, called somatic cell nuclear transfer, was used to clone Dolly the sheep in 1996.

However, a problem still had to be overcome: skin cells have 46 chromosomes, but eggs have 23.

The scientists managed to remove these extra chromosomes using a process they are calling “mitomeiosis”, which mimics how cells normally divide.

They created 82 developing eggs called oocytes, which were then fertilised by sperm via in vitro fertilisation.

After six days, less than nine per cent of the embryos developed to the point that they could hypothetically be transferred to the uterus for a standard IVF process.

However, the embryos displayed a range of abnormalities, and the experiment was ended.

While the nine per cent rate was low, the researchers noted that during natural reproduction, only around a third of embryos make it to the IVF-ready “blastocyst” stage.

Amato estimated the technology was at least a decade away from becoming widely available.

“The biggest hurdle is trying to achieve genetically normal eggs with the correct number and complement of chromosomes,” she said.

Ying Cheong, a reproductive medicine researcher at the UK’s University of Southampton, hailed the “exciting” breakthrough.

“For the first time, scientists have shown that DNA from ordinary body cells can be placed into an egg, activated, and made to halve its chromosomes, mimicking the special steps that normally create eggs and sperm,” she said.

“While this is still very early laboratory work, in the future it could transform how we understand infertility and miscarriage, and perhaps one day open the door to creating egg- or sperm-like cells for those who have no other options.”

Other researchers trying to create eggs in the lab are using a different technique. It involves reprogramming skin cells into what are called induced pluripotent stem cells — which have the potential to develop into any cell in the body — then turning those into eggs.

“It’s too early to tell which method will be more successful,” Amato said. “Either way, we are still many years away.”

The researchers followed existing US ethical guidelines regulating the use of embryos, the study said. (Punch)

Category: Science

NASA eyes April 1 for crewed moon mission

Scientists turn human skin cells into eggs