New missions are carrying innovative technology, and a little red house, to the moon

Editor’s note: A version of this story appeared in CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here.

Landing on the moon is one of the most challenging things humanity has attempted. Perhaps that’s part of what drives us to keep trying.

Years before astronauts are set to return to the lunar surface, a stream of robotic explorers are carrying the ambitions of private companies aiming for a moon landing.

For Intuitive Machines, 2025 presents a second chance at perfection after its Odysseus spacecraft touched down on the moon in February 2024 but ultimately tipped over.

No matter the outcome of that company’s upcoming mission and a host of other lunar pursuits, 2025 promises to be an exciting year for the latest leg of the new moon race.

Lunar update

Two different lunar missions lifted off aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket this week, each with its own trek and purpose as they head for the silvery orb.

Texas-based Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost mission, featuring the company’s first lunar lander, is on its way to an ancient volcanic structure with a Lunar PlanetVac to collect soil samples.

Meanwhile, Tokyo-based Ispace sent Resilience, an improved version of the Hakuto-R spacecraft that crash-landed on the moon in 2023. A mini rover is on board, as well as a tiny red artwork called “Moonhouse,” among other items.

Blue Ghost is expected to attempt a landing on March 2, while Resilience will conserve energy and take four to five months to reach its target.

Defying gravity

After a few starts and stops, Jeff Bezos’ company Blue Origin successfully launched its New Glenn rocket to space for the first time on Thursday. The rocket, which could be a contender against rival SpaceX, carried a tech demo for Blue Ring, a spacecraft designed to tow satellites deeper into space.

Later the same day, SpaceX’s Starship launched its most ambitious test flight yet. The company was able to catch the rocket booster as it returned to Earth. But the Starship spacecraft itself exploded, and the debris diverted flights over the Caribbean. The Federal Aviation Administration has grounded Starship as it investigates reports of property damage in Turks and Caicos.

And India became the fourth country to ace an uncrewed docking between two small crafts, called Target and Chaser, in space. Such an achievement is critical if the country wishes to build its own space station and put an Indian astronaut on the moon.

Ocean secrets

Fingernail-size pygmy seahorses are some of the smallest vertebrates on the planet, but British marine biologist Richard Smith makes their colorful world seem larger than life.

Smith began studying the elusive creatures in the early 2000s. Seahorses are known to mate for life. But he uncovered that a species of pygmy seahorse found off the Indonesian island of Sulawesi is polygamous.

He dived for hours a day to observe a female he nicknamed Josephine who had three male suitors.

Seahorses are one of the only animals in which the male carries eggs, deposited by the female, and then gives birth. Smith’s photos, showcased in a new book, even captured the stretch marks of one of the male seahorses that carried Josephine’s babies for her.

Trailblazers

Royal Navy surgeon James Lind discovered the cure for scurvy when he tested treatments in 1747 among a group of 12 sailors in an experiment regarded as the first controlled clinical trial of the modern age.

But he might have been inspired by a little-known instrument maker named Francis Hauksbee the Younger, the nephew of Sir Isaac Newton’s laboratory assistant.

Just four years before the scurvy study, Hauksbee wrote a proposal that laid out an approach for carrying out a controlled trial that included 12 participants and considered their diets and long-term clinical outcomes. And when modern researchers compared the designs for Lind’s and Hauksbee’s studies, they uncovered a pattern.

Back to the future

Biotech company Colossal Biosciences’ plans to create approximations of extinct creatures such as the woolly mammoth, dodo and Tasmanian tiger within the next decade make it seem as though de-extinction is possible in our lifetime.

Genetics and old-fashioned breeding have already been used by Netherlands-based Grazelands Rewilding to bring about herds of tauros cattle, the modern-day equivalent of the aurochs, an ox depicted in prehistoric cave paintings.

Colossal Biosciences has raised millions in funds thanks to high-profile investors including athletes and celebrities. But there are numerous challenges and concerns associated with reviving animals lost to time.

“It’s not de-extinction, it’s genetically engineering a novel organism to fulfill the functions, theoretically, of an extant (living) organism,” said Melanie Challenger, deputy co-chair of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics in the United Kingdom. “And all the way through the process, there are different, quite gnarly ethical considerations.”

Discoveries

These intriguing stories may inspire a curiosity voyage:

— Scientists are undertaking a new project to better understand “dark” oxygen, apparently produced by potato-size metallic rocks on the seabed. The endeavor could help reveal life beyond Earth.

— A moon rover-inspired robot named Adam that can shuttle heavy produce across difficult terrain and cut grass could be a game changer for Japan’s aging farmers.

— Researchers newly identified a “supergiant” crustacean, with a head that resembles the helmet of Darth Vader from the “Star Wars” films, near the coast of Vietnam.

Like what you’ve read? Oh, but there’s more. Sign up here to receive in your inbox the next edition of Wonder Theory, brought to you by CNN Space and Science writers Ashley Strickland, Katie Hunt and Jackie Wattles. They find wonder in planets beyond our solar system and discoveries from the ancient world.

For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com