New Scientist - USA (2022-01-29)

29 January 2022 | New Scientist | 25

Solar system

THE first rover on the far side of the

moon, China’s Yutu-2, has found

stark differences with the near side.

These include stickier soil on the far

side and a greater abundance of

small rocks and impact craters.

Despite earlier missions to the

moon, its far side has remained

unexplored because of difficulties

communicating with Earth. But in

2019, China’s Chang’e 4 mission

landed the Yutu-2 rover there.

Now, Liang Ding at the Harbin

Institute of Technology, China,

and his colleagues have deduced

something of the make-up and

features of the far-side soil.

The researchers found that the

rover didn’t slip and skid as much

as expected, indicating that the far

side was relatively flat. The soil also

appeared to readily stick to the rover

wheels, which means it is probably

more consolidated and supportive.

As well as being useful for

designing future rovers, fathoming

the soil make-up and distribution

of rocks can tell us about the history

of the lunar surface itself.

The Yutu-2 rover also found a

dark-greenish, glistening material

at the bottom of one crater, similar

to substances found in Apollo

mission samples and probably

a remnant of an impact (Science

Robotics, doi.org/hdfc). AW

Verdict is in on the moon’s

backside – flatter and stickier

XIN

HU

A/S

HU

TT

ER

ST

OC

K

Elephant’s trunk

is super sensitive

The neurons controlling

the sense of touch in an

elephant’s trunk number in

the hundreds of thousands,

far more than had been

expected. The discovery

comes from dissections

of the heads of elephants

that lived in zoos and died

naturally or as a result of

disease (Current Biology,

doi.org/hdb2).

Svalbard ice loss

to double by 2100

Using photographs from

the 1930s as a guide,

a research team has

projected that glaciers on

Svalbard, an archipelago

in the Arctic, will lose ice at

about double their current

rate by 2100. The loss will

devastate communities

there and contribute

to global sea level rise

(Nature, doi.org/gn674x).

Diplodocus had a

speedy ancestor

The earliest dinosaurs in

the group that included

long-necked giants like

Diplodocus were small

and agile, suggests an

anatomical reconstruction

of Thecodontosaurus,

which ran on two legs.

Its muscles indicate that

it favoured speed over

force (Royal Society Open

Science, doi.org/hdb5).

AN

UP

SH

AH

/NA

TU

RE
PL
.CO

M

Really brief

Wildlife

TARANTULAS make their homes

everywhere from dusty desert

burrows to rainforest canopies.

Now, researchers have discovered

a new tarantula that dwells

entirely in the hollow stems of

bamboo, a first for these spiders.

JoCho Sippawat – a wildlife

YouTuber from Thailand – first

encountered the new species

(Taksinus bambus) in a jungle in

Tak province in the north-west

of the country, noticing a brown

tarantula with narrow, light bands

on the legs dropping from a hollow

bamboo stem. Sippawat sent a

photo to Narin Chomphuphuang,

an arachnologist at Khon Kaen

University, Thailand, who

immediately suspected the

creature was undescribed.

In July 2020, Chomphuphuang

and his team accompanied

Sippawat to the forest outside

the village of Mae Tho to find and

collect some of the tarantulas. The

researchers later made detailed

measurements of the spiders and

compared them with other related

species. Based on key differences

in the legs and the shape of the

male sexual organs, the team not

only assigned the tarantula to a

new species, but to a totally new

genus: Taksinus (ZooKeys,

doi.org/hdfp). Jake Buehler

New tarantula lives

in bamboo stems

New Scientist Daily

Get the latest scientific discoveries in your inbox

newscientist.com/sign-up

Space

A BLACK hole at the centre of

a dwarf galaxy has created new

stars by expelling jets of gas

hundreds of light years long.

Astronomers have observed

supermassive black holes creating

star-forming regions before, but

until now it was thought that black

holes residing in dwarf galaxies,

which contain a billion stars or

less, hindered star formation.

Zachary Schutte at Montana

State University and his colleagues

observed a black hole in a

dwarf galaxy called Hen 2-10

spewing a plume of ionised

gas nearly 500 light years long,

stretching from the galactic centre

to a cloud of gas on the galaxy’s

edge where stars were forming.

Schutte and his team used the

Hubble Space Telescope to observe

and carry out spectroscopy on the

dim dwarf galaxy, which is about

34 million light years away.

Astronomers are interested in

dwarf galaxies because they could

be similar to galaxies found in

the very early universe. If the laws

governing their evolution haven’t

changed, understanding how

dwarf galaxies form stars could

tell us how the likes of the Milky

Way might have evolved.

Dwarf galaxies typically have

a black hole or supernova at their

centre, but are so dim that it can be

difficult to tell which they contain.

The high-resolution method that

Schutte and his team used for Hen

2-10 resulted in strong evidence of

a black hole, providing a potential

road map for imaging other dwarf

galaxies (Nature, doi.org/hdfn).

Joanna Piotrowska at the

University of Cambridge calls this

a real breakthrough. Alex Wilkins

Tiny galaxy’s black

hole drives star birth