Apollo 13 at 50 Years: Looking Back at the Mission's Lost Lunar Science

Trouble viewing? View in your browser. View all Scientific American publications.

             

April 13, 2020

Dear Reader, 50 years ago this month, NASA launched its third mission to put astronauts on the moon—but the lunar landing was aborted after an oxygen tank failed en route. Instead, the Apollo 13 crew looped around the moon and returned safely to Earth. Our lead story reflects on the voyage and shares some of the scientific objectives that could have been accomplished had everything gone to plan. Also in today's news, humans' and domesticated animals' influence will overwhelm the fossil record. And lastly, March 2020 was the planet's second warmest March since record keeping began in 1880.

Sunya Bhutta, Senior Editor, Audience Engagement @sunyaaa

Space Apollo 13 at 50 Years: Looking Back at the Mission's Lost Lunar Science Its commander Jim Lovell and pilot Fred Haise reflect on their fateful, flawed voyage to the moon By Robert Z. Pearlman

Cognition "Event" Cells in the Brain Help Organize Memory into Meaningful Segments Neurons in the hippocampus categorize what we experience into abstract, discrete events, such as taking a walk versus having lunch By Simon Makin

Evolution Livestock, Pets and People Will Dominate Future Fossils The bones of humans and their domesticated animals will overwhelm biodiversity in the fossil record  By Rachel Nuwer

Public Health What Recovery From COVID-19 Looks Like Outcomes vary greatly depending on age and other factors, a pulmonologist explains By Judith Graham,Kaiser Health News

Climate March 2020: Earth's 2nd Warmest March and 3rd Warmest Month on Record 2020 is over 70% likely to be the warmest year on record By Jeff Masters

Behavior & Society The True Costs of the COVID-19 Pandemic It will kill many directly, but the effort to fight it will incur a huge toll on other aspects of our health and well-being By Nason Maani,Sandro Galea

Physics Remembering Freeman Dyson In our conversations, he ventured far and wide across science, literature and politics, offering unorthodox ideas with a bracing self-confidence

FROM THE STORE Scientific American Digital & Full Archive For $69 per year, your Digital & Full Archive subscription includes 12 digital issues with full digital archive access back to 1845 and Android and iOS app access.

ADVERTISEMENT

FROM THE ARCHIVE Down to Earth: The Apollo Moon Missions That Never Were As the U.S.'s lunar landing program wound down, plans for its last three Apollo missions were canceled, leaving unused hardware and questions of what might have been By Kenneth Silber

QUOTE OF THE DAY "I think if we had landed, and if we never had the problem in the first place, I think the science work we had trained for would have been achieved." Jim Lovell, former NASA astronaut

LATEST ISSUES

Questions?   Comments?

Download the Scientific American App

To view this email as a web page, go here. You received this email because you opted-in to receive email from Scientific American. To ensure delivery please add news@email.scientificamerican.com to your address book. Unsubscribe     Manage Email Preferences     Privacy Policy     Contact Us