lunar

While Artemis II searches for a way to return to the Moon, there are those who have already become millionaires selling lunar plots

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There are sellers so skilled that they are capable of selling the Moon to anyone. It is not in a figurative sense. As NASA works to put astronauts back on the lunar surface with Artemis IIAmerican Dennis Hope has been building a fortune for more than forty years by putting a price on each hectare of the satellite and sending property titles by mail. And the most striking thing is that no one has stopped him from doing so. Hope came into this business in 1980, when she was going through a divorce and had her account in the red after more than a year of unemployment. As he related in an interview with Vice magazine, he thought he could make some money if he had some property, he looked out the window and it occurred to him that there would be a lot available on the Moon. What came next was not just a hunch: it was a million-dollar operation based on a very particular reading of international law. The legal vacuum that made it possible. His first step was to go to the library and look for the Outer Space Treaty 1967. What he found was a door ajar: the article 2 of that treaty establishes that the Moon and other celestial bodies are not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, use or occupation, or by any other means. The treaty placed limits on the appropriation of lunar territories to countries, but did not say anything explicit about the ownership of individuals. Hope submitted a formal claim of ownership over the Moon, the other eight planets and their moons to the United Nations, explaining his intention to parcel out those spaces and sell the properties to private buyers. In his letter he added that if they had any legal problem, they should let him know. Nobody answered him. So Hope interpreted this administrative silence as an absence of legal opposition, and from there he started his business. According to counted your son to ABCsix million people have already purchased land outside of Earth. An intergalactic business with luxury clientele. Since then, Hope has sold plots not only of the Moon, but also of Mars, Venus and Mercury. In an interview to the BBCHope claimed that he sold an average of 1,500 properties a day and explained that the way to choose the lots was by closing his eyes and pointing with his index finger at a point on the lunar map. “It’s not very scientific, but it’s fun,” he told the British media. It is estimated that he has earned about 12 million dollars with this business, which he claims is the only one he has had since 1995. Among his clients are former US presidents such as Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter, Hollywood stars and greats. hotel chains like Hilton and Marriott. The space race reopens the debate. What for decades seemed like a picturesque anecdote has returned to the debate table in light of the reactivation of space programs to the moon. Artemis II has become the first manned mission to leave Earth’s orbit since the Apollo program in 1972, and its objective is to prepare the ground for future missions to the lunar south pole and even Mars. The Outer Space Treaty prohibits the appropriation of territories on the Moon or other planets, but does not explicitly prohibit extracting their resources, which has generated a legal gray area that was revealed in the 2023 ratification of this treaty, which also covers Hope’s real estate business. For Kai-Uwe Schrogl, president of the International Space Law Institute, the situation is clear: “There are no legal loopholes. There are only willfully erroneous interpretations of the treaty,” declared to D.W.. Is the Moon for everyone? As and as he explained Juan Manuel de Faramiñán, emeritus professor at the University of Jaén and co-director of the AstroÁndalus Chair of aerospace and astronomical studies at National Geographicin 2020 NASA issued the Artemis Agreementsa document in which the US establishes a set of practical principles to guide cooperation in space exploration between nations. “It must be considered that the signatory States of the Artemis Agreements are not signatories of the Moon Agreement. I must say, and it is a personal opinion, that the Artemis Agreements have become a shortcut to avoid the idea of ​​the common heritage of humanity and open the spigot so that both States and companies can access the resources of the Moon in accordance with their own interests,” stated Faramiñán. Old treaties for a new space race. The current legal framework on the ownership of the Moon was born in the middle of the Cold War and was designed for a world of two superpowers. Today there are large private companies with the capacity to reach the Moon without support from the States, new state interests and the discovery of natural resources. like water ice detected on the lunar surface, which could be key for long-duration missions. He Moon Treaty of 1979which attempted to regulate the exploitation of these resources by establishing that they would be the common heritage of humanity, was never ratified by any of the current great space powers. The result is a system of rules designed for another century, with loopholes that have allowed an individual to sell lunar hectares for decades without legal consequences. Xataka | The “hidden” side of the Moon has been a mystery for decades: China already has a chemical map to shed light Image | POTPexels (Nicholas Thomas)

so you can follow its lunar flyby live

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What we are seeing today is not just another space mission, but the return of humanity to a type of journey that had not been repeated for decades. Artemis II It is in full approach to the Moon and, for the first time since the Apollo era, a human crew is flying over it again. The difference is that today we can follow this moment almost in real time via NASA YouTube channelaccompanying the astronauts in one of the most symbolic sections of the entire mission. On the way. Orion has already crossed the limit in which the Moon’s gravity prevails over that of the Earth, something that happened in the Spanish early morning, at 06:37, according to NASA data. That step marks a before and after: from that moment, the ship and its crew not only approach the Moon, but also enter its gravitational domain. What comes next is one of the most anticipated moments of the mission, the turn around our satellite before heading back. Record distance. There is a specific moment on this day that goes beyond the maneuver itself and that has enormous symbolic weight within the history of space exploration. At 7:56 p.m. Spanish peninsular time, the Artemis II crew has surpassed the Apollo 13 mark as the humans who have been the furthest from Earth, a record that has remained intact since 1970. This is not just a technical fact: it is the confirmation that we are going beyond what had been achieved until now with human presence. The key moment, step by step. From here, the mission enters its most anticipated section, and it does so with a very precise schedule that has already begun to be fulfilled. At the time of publication of this article, several milestones have already taken place, while others are about to occur overnight. These schedules are adjusted to Spanish peninsular time. The milestones after midnight already correspond to the early morning of April 7 in Spain. Screenshot showing the countdown before breaking the Apollo 13 distance record 06:37: entry into the lunar sphere of influence, the gravity of the Moon begins to dominate (already concluded) 19:30: scientific briefing to the crew from the control center (already concluded) 19:56: the crew surpasses the distance record of Apollo 13 (already completed) 20:45: start of lunar observations 00:44: loss of communication when passing behind the Moon 00:45: “Earthset”, the Earth hides behind the Moon from the perspective of Orion 01:02: closest approach to the lunar surface, about 6,550 km 01:07: maximum distance from Earth 01:25: “Earthrise”, the Earth appears again on the other side of the Moon 01:25: Communication with the crew is recovered 02:35 – 03:32: solar eclipse seen from the ship 03:20: end of lunar observations What we see live. Beyond the technical milestones and schedules, there is a logical question that we all ask ourselves: what exactly are we going to be able to see during this flyby. NASA explains that The coverage includes live images of the Moon captured by cameras installed on Orion’s solar panels, which will allow us to follow the ship’s passage alongside our satellite for several hours. Now, the agency itself warns that the quality of these images may vary depending on distance, system limitations and communications bandwidth. That is, we will not always see a perfect signal, but it will be representative enough to follow the moment. The story is not over yet. While we continue to monitor what is happening hundreds of thousands of kilometers away, Artemis II continues to advance through a sequence of maneuvers that still has several key moments ahead during the early hours of the morning. We are not facing a mission that we can already consider closed, but rather we are facing an ongoing process that we are experiencing almost directly. Images | POT In Xataka | Artemis II is not just a victory for NASA: without the support of Europe it would have been impossible, literally

NASA chose 34 points around the world to track its lunar mission and only one in Spain. It is in Seville, on a rooftop

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If the weather behaves well and no problemsnext April 1 (early morning on April 2 in Spain) NASA will launch Artemis II. It will be the first manned mission of the Artemis programand in it four astronauts will travel aboard the Orion capsule to orbit around the Moon. during the mission 34 locations spread around the world will track the spacecraft’s radio signals and send their data to NASA. One of these headquarters will be in a special location: the roof of the Higher Technical School of Engineering of the University of Seville. A NASA antenna in Seville. In August 2025, NASA published an open call for third-party organizations to demonstrate their tracking capabilities during an actual manned mission. All types of organizations, agencies and institutions showed up, and even private radio amateurs also did so. Of the 34 selected around the world, the ETSi is the only Spanish center that will participate in this monitoring. The Orbisat system in operation. Source: Integrasys. space roof. It will do so in collaboration with Integrasys, a Spanish company specialized in this field and which has installed its platform on the roof of the ETSi building. Orbisat. This 2.5 meter high system has been developed at its Luxembourg subsidiary and is designed to track space vehicles both during launch and during subsequent operations. Plan B. The ETSi and the Orbisat system will receive the radio signals that the Orion spacecraft emits during its trip, process them and send them in real time to NASA for analysis. The key data they will measure is the Doppler effect of the signal: the variation in frequency of the waves depending on the relative speed between the ship and the antenna. It is a key parameter to determine both the position of the ship and to calculate its trajectory. It should be noted here that this system will not be responsible for the main monitoring, which will be done from the network Deep Space Network from NASA. This monitoring will be complementary and will help the agency evaluate what monitoring capabilities it can use outside of its own infrastructure. It’s a plan B. Why 34 antennas?. This support program responds to a very clear strategy of the space agency: build a public-private space tracking ecosystem that does not depend on its own network. Kevin Coggins, deputy director of the NASA SCaN programhe explained in the official announcement that “it is not about tracking a mission, but rather about building a resilient ecosystem that supports future exploration.” The initiative is an evolution of what was already done in 2022 with Artemis I, when ten volunteers tracked the unmanned mission. On that occasion, data format and quality problems were detected, and for Artemis II, participants have been forced to meet certain standards. An opportunity for Seville and for Integrasys. The Orbisat platform will be installed in Seville permanently, which turns the ETSi into a real monitoring infrastructure and not a one-off collaboration. For the company Integrasys, based in Las Rozas (Madrid), this first direct collaboration with NASA adds to those it already had with the Space Force and the US Space Command. Now it remains to be seen if this serves as a gateway to its participation also in future space missions such as Artemis III, which will land on the lunar surface. The Aerospace Technology Group of the University of Vigo will also participate in monitoring the mission. The students are in luck. The Master in Space Systems Operation at the University of Seville is taught for the first time in this 2025-26 academic year. Students will have direct access to the data generated by Orbisat during the Artemis II missionand with them they will be able to apply orbital determination and trajectory analysis techniques in that real scenario. For them this occasion is special, since they will be able to go beyond the books and have access to the telemetry of a manned spacecraft orbiting the Moon. A much more powerful way to learn, without a doubt. Spain on space map. The network of the 34 selected includes organizations such as the Canadian Space Agency, the German DLR, companies such as Telespazio and universities from Switzerland, Japan and the United States. Seville is on that list along with individual radio amateurs from California or South Dakota, amateur radio organizations such as AMSAT in Argentina or Germany, research centers in Cameroon or New Zealand and professional stations in Norway and the United Kingdom. The conclusion is clear: NASA has here the beginning of what can be a heterogeneous and decentralized network with monitoring capabilities. The Spanish participation on the Artemis II mission, by the way, goes a little furtherbut could go much further even. Image | NASA | ETSi In Xataka | In 2018, Elon Musk put his own car into orbit. Eight years later it is still circling the Earth

NASA has put a Spaniard in charge of the project for its future lunar base: Carlos García-Galán from Malaga

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Dressed in a jacket, light blue shirt and gold tie, Carlos García-Galán He did not occupy another chair at the NASA conference held in Washington. Escorted by the administrator Jared Isaacman and other top-level officials, the engineer from Malaga spoke before the press in the middle of the presentation of the agency’s new lunar turn. His presence at that time placed him at the forefront of a roadmap that redefines NASA’s priorities on the Moon. The context of that scene helps understand its relevance. Hours before,Isaacman had presented a roadmap that changes the focus of the agency. It is no longer just about returning to the Moon, but about establishing a sustained presence on its surface. The proposal involves deploying in three phases the initial elements of a permanent lunar base, with stable infrastructure and a logic that is more industrial than experimental. The man from Malaga who now pilots the Moon Base program This change of course also redefines the role of those who must execute it. In this context appears García-Galán, whose official position within NASA is “executive program” at the lunar base. This is a high-level management position, responsible for coordinate and guide program development, not an operational role on the ground. His role will be to lead the project from the agency structure, not to direct a facility on the lunar surface. García-Galán, remember, is not a newcomer, but an engineer who has developed his career within NASA and has been assuming responsibilities for years to get to this point. His presence in the announcement is linked to that trajectory, which now places him in one of the great bets of the US space agency at this stage. His career within NASA helps to understand why he has come this far. Before this appointment, García-Galán, according to LinkedInheld the position of “deputy manager” of the Gateway program, until now a relevant piece in the agency’s lunar architecture. With more than 27 years of experience In manned space flights, he has worked on the design, integration and operation of complex systems, participating in programs such as the International Space Station and the Orion spacecraft. His experience at Gateway also helps explain this appointment. In that program, García-Galán was involved in integration and management tasks within an environment with multiple partners and components. The new approach towards a lunar base requires precisely this ability to order diverse pieces, from missions to infrastructure, something that fits with the profile that has been developed within the agency in recent years. The program that he will now supervise is divided into several phases with a common objective: establishing a sustained presence on the lunar surface. NASA proposes a sequence of missions that will go deploying infrastructurefrom mobility and energy systems to communications networks and habitats. The idea is to advance progressively towards a base capable of sustaining longer-term human stays. Images | NASA (1, 2, 3) In Xataka | Elon Musk knows that TSMC is overwhelmed: Terafab is his idea to completely change the global chip industry

Madrid stew. An American team manages to grow chickpeas in lunar regolith

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A team from the University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M has achieved that a handful of chickpea plants complete their life cycle in a substrate that imitates the lunar regolith. That is to say, (for the first time) it has been possible for a legume of direct nutritional interest to germinate, develop flowers and produce seeds in a medium of this type. But, let’s go for twists. Grow chickpeas on the Moon!? Although that is the most striking headline, the truth is that it is not exactly that what researchers have shown. We have been trying to find ways to grow crops in the lunar regolith for years and, in fact, the tests that were done in 2022 on real samples were a failure. For this reason, the team has focused on demonstrating that a sterile substrate could be transformed into something similar to arable soil by exploring the symbiosis between the plant in question and a fungus. That is, the crucial thing is that they have managed to ‘bioremediate’ the pulverized rock. And what did they do? The researchers got together chickpeas with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi. These fungi drastically improve the absorption of water and nutrients, increase resistance to stress and function for practical purposes as natural biofertilizers. The chickpeas in question flowered and produced seeds in soil containing up to 75% simulated regolith. In the soil composed of 100% simulated regolith they couldn’t get them to give seedsbut the step forward is incredible. Above all, because we have gone from a proof of concept in which lPlants could survive with a lot of stress to one where they can generate crops. The choice of plant is also interesting. Typically, space agricultural research has focused on short-cycle leafy vegetables and, indeed, lettuces. have been cultivated on the ISS for a long time. The problem, as researchers say, is that these vegetables serve to complement the diet, but do not contribute much nutritionally. Chickpeas (with their 15 grams of protein per cup and almost all essential amino acids) are something else. However, the question is important: does it make sense to plant on the Moon? And the answer, as Raúl Herranz of the CSIC points outit’s just not right now. If you need 25% of the necessary soil, mushrooms and some worms… it is probably more efficient to carry the chickpeas packaged. Luckily, this is only the beginning of the journey and there is still a long way to go before the final turnaround. The good news is that we are getting closer. Image | Salvatore G2 – POT In Xataka | A study has tried to find out why space food is so bad: it’s not the food, it’s the astronauts

While Silicon Valley dreams of servers in orbit, Russia prepares a nuclear reactor on lunar soil

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Until recently, the space race was about seeing who could get there first. Today, the question is different: who will be able to turn on the light on the Moon? While companies like Google or Nvidia imagine satellites loaded with computers for their Artificial Intelligence, Russia has hit the table with a much more earthly (or lunar) plan: installing a small nuclear power plant on the surface of our satellite. A reactor by 2036. The Russian space corporation, Roscosmos, has signed a state contract with the aerospace company NPO Lavochkin to develop a lunar nuclear power plant. According to Reutersthe deadline marked in the contract is 2036. However, the political times are much more aggressive: Yury Borisov, head of Roscosmos, has placed the real operational window between 2033 and 2035. Although official statements sometimes avoid the word “nuclear” directly, project participants dispel any doubts, the Kurchatov Institute (a leader in nuclear research in Russia) and Rosatom (the state atomic flagship company) are in charge. As the Interfax media points outthe objective is to power the infrastructure of the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS), a joint project with China that seeks to move from “round trip” missions to a permanent human presence. But why what nuclear? A colony on the Moon faces nights that last 14 Earth days. During that time, the frigid temperatures and lack of light make the solar panels useless to keep astronauts alive or power life support systems. Mikhail Kovalchuk, head of the Kurchatov Institute, he explained in an interview with the Russian agency TASS that Russia must “run forward.” According to this medium, the country seeks to consolidate its leadership through the “Atomic Project 2.0”, which includes new generation reactors and closed cycle systems. It’s not just about science; Russia admits that partners like China and India have learned a lot from them and are now direct competitors. Eyes in the sky: preparing the ground. For the Russian reactor to reach the Moon, Moscow is already preparing the logistics. According to another TASS statementRussia plans to launch 52 satellites from the Vostochny cosmodrome. Among them, the Aist-2T stands out, capable of creating 3D models of the lunar terrain and monitoring emergency situations. It is the necessary infrastructure so that the “lunar atom” does not suffer the same fate as the failed Luna-25 probe in 2023. The Moscow-Beijing axis: a long-range alliance. This deployment is not a solitary effort. As Interfax detailsRussia and China formalized their ambition in May 2024 with a memorandum of cooperation for the joint construction of this nuclear plant. They are not starting from scratch: both countries presented a roadmap in 2021 that includes five joint missions to deploy modules in lunar orbit and surface. While Russia brings its historical advantage in space nuclear facilities, China provides the scientific capacity and resources for the ILRS Station to be permanently inhabited from 2030. The board of the new Cold War. Washington has not stood idly by in the face of the Russian-Chinese alliance. NASA has received a clear directive from the current administration, in which they state that They need a reactor on the Moon by 2030. “We are in a race with China,” said Sean Duffy, Secretary of Transportation and who has led this directive. The background of this urgency is not only prestige, but the control of strategic resources. The Moon is the great deposit of Helium-3, an extremely rare isotope that is emerging as the “fuel of the future” for nuclear fusion. The White House’s fear is that if the alliance between Russia and China comes sooner, they will be able to declare “exclusion zones,” blocking access to this isotope and other essential metals for the technology industry. Faced with this threat, the US has increased the power of its nuclear project from the original 40 kW to a minimum power of 100 kW. Infrastructure over prestige. The space race of the 21st century has ceased to be a question of prestige and has become a question of infrastructure. While Big Tech tries to solve its energy limits with promises of servers in orbitRussia and China have opted for the pragmatism of the reactor on solid, but lunar, soil. Image| freepik Xataka | The race to bring data centers to space promises a lot. Physics says otherwise

There are so many trips planned to the Moon that the UN has created a “lunar circulation committee” to regulate traffic.

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The Moon is coming into fashion after 50 years of calm. But this time it is not a race between two: it is a commercial race in which old and new space powers, as well as a multitude of private companies, participate. The lunar “jam.” The interest is so sudden that in the last two years there have been 12 attempted lunar missions. This “blitz” of moon landings, driven by public-private programs such as NASA’s CLPS, has proven to be a quick, cheap, but also a little chaotic to reach the Moon. Still, worrying about “traffic jams” on the Moon sounds absurd. Cislunar space (the region between the geostationary orbit of the Earth and the Moon) is gigantic: 2,000 times larger than that of Earth’s orbit. If there is so much room, where is the problem? The problem is that everyone wants the same place. In the same way that on Earth all cars use the roads, on the Moon missions tend to cluster in a very select set of stable orbits. The immensity of cislunar space is, therefore, deceptive, explain professors of International Affairs and Aerospace Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, in an article for The Conversation. To make matters worse. Most government sensors that track satellites in Earth orbit are not designed to detect and monitor objects this far away. The Moon’s own glare makes the task difficult. This uncertainty has a direct consequence: it forces operators to be excessively cautious. When in doubt about a possible collision, agencies prefer to waste fuel and carry out an evasion maneuver, which interrupts scientific missions and shortens the useful life of the ships. 50 satellites are enough for chaos. According to research published in the Journal of Spacecraft and Rocketsonly 50 satellites in lunar orbit are enough for each of them to have to maneuver an average of four times a year in order to avoid a possible collision. 50 satellites may seem like a lot, but at the current rate of launches, we could reach that number in less than a decade. And it’s not theory. It’s already happening. The Indian orbiter Chandrayaan-2 had to maneuver three times between 2019 and 2023 to avoid dangerous approaches (one of them with NASA’s LRO probe). And this occurred when there were only six operational spacecraft orbiting the Moon. The UN wants to bring order. This is where international diplomacy comes in. The United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS), the main global forum for space law, has taken action on the matter. In early 2025, COPUOS formally established a new working group: the Action Team on Lunar Activities Consultation (ATLAC). The goal of this team is precisely to create a draft of space “traffic rules.” They have until 2027 to study recommendations and a possible international consultation mechanism. Image | POT In Xataka | How many times have we gone to the Moon and why have only 11 military aviators and one geologist set foot on it in all of history?

Australia has decided to make a contribution to the lunar race in the most Australian way possible: with a giant spider

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The new lunar race does not consist only of returning to the moon, but to stay. And for that infrastructure is needed. NASA wants lunar concrete houses for 2040ESA has already found a method to pave roads from the regolitoand China trust that 3D impression accelerates your plans to create a large lunar base. Now an Australian company has put its own bet on the table, one that could not be more Australian: a Robot spider. A giant robot spider that prints houses. His name is Charlotte, and he is a hexapod robot (entomologists will forgive me) that displays his six legs to become a huge 3D printer capable of moving along the land as he built a house. Presented during the 76th International Congress of Astronautics in Sydney, this creation of Australian companies Crest Robotics and Earthbuilt Technology has been Designed for a double purpose: Solve the housing crisis on Earth and, incidentally, prepare to build the first bases on the moon, something that Australia could contribute as a partner of the Artemis program. Build at the speed of 100 masons. Although the most striking of Charlotte is the arthropod inspiration design, its true magic lies in the combination of advanced robotics with a very particular 3D printing system, which can have a key advantage on the moon. Instead of depending on massive porches, such as other 3D construction printers, Charlotte promises to place himself on the walls that he creates and walk with his six legs to move as he adds layers to the building. This gives it an agility and portability that traditional printers do not have. According to its creators, you can build A 200 square meter house in 24 hours, so it will work at the speed of 100 masons. On the moon the whole floor is concrete. On paper, Charlotte meets several of the requirements to manufacture on the moon: it is light, you can fold its legs to occupy much less space in a rocket, and is designed to collect the materials available locally. On Earth, it promises to manufacture houses with sand, earth or crushed brick. On the moon, the plan is to collect soil regolito, compress it in a flexible tank and use the compacted material to form the layers of walls with already tested 3D printing techniques. It is an industrial and automated version of the construction technique with sacks. The regolite, the fine and abrasive dust that covers the lunar surface, is both a problem and a solution. It was a nightmare for Apollo missions, adhering to costumes and equipment, but it is also The fundamental raw material For any lunar construction project. If one day there are people living on the moon, they may do so in houses built in the most Australian way: with a gigantic spider (forgiveness, hexapod) robot. Image | Crest Robotics In Xataka | Forget the “little step for man.” The new moon career is not for glory, it is for the control of its resources

It will be one of the longest lunar eclipses of the decade

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The Romans said “Origo” to refer to the origin, so they used “orior” as a verb born. From there came “Ortus” for the birth of the sun, better known as dawn. “Ortho” in Spanish is defined as the exit of a star by the horizon. And this Sunday, With the lunar eclipsethe moon will have a beautiful ortho. A total moon eclipse. Every year there are at least two lunar eclipses, but they are not always total. This Sunday, September 7, will be one of the longest in the decade, with a totality of 82 minutes visible from most Asia. It can also be seen already started From most of Spainwith the moon very low on the horizon. But it will not be visible from America. A lunar eclipse occurs when the earth is aligned between the sun and the moon in full moon phase, and its shadow is projected on the lunar disc. The earth’s shadow has two zones: the gloom, which darkens the moon subtly, and the umbra, which blocks sunlight. In the case of a partial eclipse, the umbra looks like a bite, and in the case of a total eclipse, the full moon darkens. A blood moon. During the totality phase, The moon can become redwhat is known as blood moon. Although the umbra blocks the sunlight, the Earth’s atmosphere refracts solar light filtered towards the satellite. In this case, the blue wavelengths are dispersed by a physical phenomenon known as Rayleight dispersion, hence the red tones predominate. The blood moon this Sunday will reach its most intense point at 20:11. If you are in Spain, the moon will be totally eclipsed, reddish color. Even so, with a clear horizon, you can see the best part of the show, especially from the Balearic Islands and the Mediterranean coast of the Peninsula. On the other hand, visibility will be low to the west, particularly in the Canary Islands and Western Galicia, where only the partial phase of the end of the eclipse can be seen. The full schedule of the eclipse. In the peninsular hour (UTC+2), the Moon will enter a gloom (slight darkening) on ​​Sunday at 17:28. The partial phase of the eclipse (the bite) will begin to be seen at 18:27, but only in the countries where the moon is already out. The totality phase (the moon is completely inside the Umbra) will begin at 19:31 and will end at 20:53. Then the partial phase will be repeated until 21:56 and the Penumbral until 22:55. What will be seen from Spain. The visible phases will depend on whether the moon is whether or not where you are. In Madrid, the Moon will leave at 20:35, so they can be seen about 18 minutes. In general, the moon will leave the horizon totally eclipsed and dyed red from most of the country, with the exception of western Galicia and Canary Islands, where only a partial eclipse will be seen. In Barcelona: 41 minutes of totality from 20:11 In Valencia: 32 minutes of totality from 20:20 In Seville: 10 minutes of totality from 20:42 In Zaragoza: 28 minutes of totality from 20:24 In Malaga: 17 minutes of totality from 20:35 In Murcia: 30 minutes of totality from 20:22 In Palma: 44 minutes of totality from 20:08 In Las Palmas: only partial from 20:15 (UTC+1) In Bilbao: 18 minutes of totality from 20:34 In Valladolid: 12 minutes of totality from 20:39 In Vigo: only partial from 20:56 In Gijón: 7 minutes of totality from 20:45 Where you have to look. Unlike a solar eclipse, seeing a lunar eclipse is totally safe with the naked eye and with prismatic. Since in Spain it coincides with the exit of the moon, it will be best to look for a place with the horizon is clear (a beach of the coast, a viewpoint, a roof …) and wait for the satellite to rise, already eclipsed and red, for the sky. Image | Liquidcrash (Flickr, CC by-SA 2.0) In Xataka | Total Eclipse of September 2025: When is it and how you can see it in Spain

What happened to lunar volcanoes

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An asteroid impact on the Moon started a fragment of the satellite surface and threw it into space. After a trip of thousands of years, the meteorite fell in northwest Africa, where it was discovered in February 2023. After two years of studies, it has helped cover a hole of one billion years in the lunar geological history. Context. Apollo missions brought 382 kg of lunar rocks to Earth. The analysis of these rocks told us that the moon had had a violent volcanic past, but that its inner fire had turned off about 3,000 million years ago. A much more recent mission, Chang’e 5, brought younger basalts, “barely” 2,000 million years. This still leaves us a huge hole of almost one billion years of lunar history in which we do not know what happened. Did volcanism go out and reactivated? The answer came to us. And it has arrived, as so many times in science, by chance. A lunar rock found in the Norafricano desert in 2023 has turned out to be the piece that was missing in the puzzle. He NWA 16286 Meteorite Analysispresented at the Goldschmidt conference in Prague, suggests that lunar volcanism was a much more continuous process than we thought. The lunar meteorite number 31. The protagonist of this story is a piece of soil of the moon of 311 grams, one of the only 31 lunar basalt meteorites officially identified on our planet. It was not brought by any astronaut or any probe, but reached the earth by its own foot. An asteroid impact on the moon started it from the satellite surface and threw it into space. After a trip of thousands of years, he fell in northwest Africa, where he was discovered in February 2023. Studying the rocks that the moon sends us for free is an incredibly valuable way to explore its geology, because the rocks of the sampling return missions are limited to the immediate areas of the places chosen for the moon landing. Lunar meteorites can be expelled from anywhere from the moon surface. There is a lot of serendipia in this sample. The missing piece. But the true importance of NWA 16286 resides in his age. He Lead isotope analysis He has dated the rock in about 2,350 million years. This makes it the youngest lunar basaltic meteorite ever discovered, and places it within that mysterious hole of one billion years in lunar volcanic history. The samples of NASA and Luna’s Apollo missions of the Soviet Union are between 3,100 and 4,000 million years. Those of the Chinese Chang’e-6 mission (from the hidden face of the moon) They are about 2,830 million years. Chinese mission shows Chang’e-5 (from the visible face of the moon) are about 2,030 million years. NWA 16286 is in the middle. Volcanic activity did not stop. The characteristics of the meteorite suggest that Lunar volcanic activity continued Throughout that time: the moon was not geologically dead. It is a basalt rich in olivine with unusually high levels of potassium. In addition, its “fingerprint” lead isotopic pointed out that it was formed from a source in the lunar mantle with a very high proportion of uranium-plaomo. Potassium and uranium are radioactive elements, as is the thorium. Its disintegration along eons generates a constant amount of heat. The theory, now reinforced by this rock, is that lunar mantle bags enriched in these elements acted as a residual heat engine that maintained parts of the interior of the moon hot enough to produce magma and feed volcanoes much after what was thought. What part of the moon came from? NWA 16286 has a different lithology from any known meteorite. It is believed that it came from a lunar sea so far not sampled. Its texture suggests a two -stage cooling story: a slow, perhaps in a magma camera, followed by an eruption in a lava flow of several tens of meters thick. This rock not only resolves an old mystery, but also serves as a guide. Analyzing their trajectory and composition will help scientists identify the crater of origin on the moon, marking a priority point of interest for future sampling return missions. And so is how a rock found in the desert is telling us where we have to go the next time we visit the moon. Image | SM BELARDO et al. In Xataka | There is a silent career to get the moon waves: dozens of companies have claimed part of their spectrum

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