Japan Joins Elite Club by Landing on Moon. What Are Others Doing?
Voice of America
FILE - A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, with a payload including two lunar rovers from Japan and the United Arab Emirates, lifts off from Launch Complex 40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Dec. 11, 2022.
Japan landed a spacecraft on the moon Saturday, an attempt at the world's first "pinpoint lunar landing." The milestone puts Japan in a club previously occupied by only the United States, the Soviet Union, India and China.
A Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials researcher controls a wheelchair with stiffness-variable "morphing" wheels in Daejeon, South Korea, Nov. 5, 2024. The "morphing" wheel can roll over obstacles up to 1.3 times the height of its radius. Inspired by the surface tension of water droplets, it goes from solid to fluid when it encounters impediments.
FILE - Part of the temples of Baalbek, a UNESCO world heritage site in Lebanon's eastern Bekaa Valley, illuminated in blue light, Oct. 24, 2015. FILE - This picture shows closed shops on an empty street in the eastern Lebanese city of Baalbek on Oct. 19, 2024. FILE - People walk near the Roman ruins of Baalbek, Lebanon, Jan. 5, 2024. FILE - A man sits amidst the rubble at a site damaged in the aftermath of an Israeli strike on the town of Al-Ain in the Baalbek region, amid the ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, in Lebanon, Nov. 6, 2024.
Dr. Jaafar al Jotheri, shown here Nov. 10, 2024, holds satellite images and explores the site of the Battle of al-Qadisiyah, which was fought in Mesopotamia -- present-day Iraq -- in the 630s AD. A desert area with scattered plots of agricultural land with features that closely matched the description of the al-Qadisiyah battle site described in historic texts, Nov. 10, 2024.
FILE - This colorized electron microscope image provided by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in 2024 shows mpox virus particles, orange, found within infected cells, green. (NIAID via AP)
Activists protest in a demonstration at the COP29 U.N. Climate Summit on Nov. 16, 2024, in Baku, Azerbaijan.
Jake Paul, left, fights Mike Tyson during their heavyweight boxing match on Nov. 15, 2024, in Arlington, Texas.
Climate activists stage a protest inside the COP29 venue to demand a phase out of fossil fuels during the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Baku on Nov. 15, 2024.
A motorist drives past the CHS oil refinery Sept. 28, 2024, in McPherson, Kan. Pumpjacks operate in a milo field, Monday, Sept. 30, 2024, near Hays, Kan.
FILE - Tuvalu, shown in this undated photo, is among Pacific atoll islands threatened with rising sea levels, according to a World Bank study released on Nov. 14, 2024. (Rising Nations Initiative via AP)
FILE - A pumpjack operates at dawn in a pasture, Sept. 30, 2024, near Hays, Kan.
Divers from National Geographic Pristine Seas measure the world’s largest coral colony in the Solomon Islands.