ScientistPankaj: I Survived a Weekend at Biosphere 2 Pretending to Be in Space

Thursday, July 13, 2023

I Survived a Weekend at Biosphere 2 Pretending to Be in Space

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July 13, 2023

This week's top story is an intrepid correspondent's tale of surviving a weekend at Biosphere 2—presumably without even getting a lousy t-shirt in return. Biosphere 2 (Biosphere 1 being the Earth) is a storied facility in the Sonoran Desert that merges technology and nature to allow "analog astronauts" to carry out simulated space missions largely cut off from the outside world. After a rocky start in the 1990s and a subsequent stint hosting basic ecology experiments, the facility is now reclaiming some of its original mojo, returning to its roots of hosting aspirational analog astronauts. Read the story to learn more! Elsewhere, we have stories on India's looming lunar launch, the story behind a poem heading to Europa, and much more. Enjoy!

Lee Billings, Senior Editor, Space & Physics

Space Exploration

I Survived a Weekend at Biosphere 2 Pretending to Be in Space

At a stay in Biosphere 2, I went in skeptical but learned to understand why analog astronauts love what they do

By Sarah Scoles

Aerospace

India Aims for the Moon with Launch of Chandrayaan-3

After a failure in 2019, India's second attempt to land on the moon comes as the nation signs on to a U.S.-led plan to shape future global lunar activities

By Jatan Mehta

Arts

NASA's Europa Clipper Mission Carries Special Cargo: A Poem

"If, by some chance, there's another being out there that might connect to it, I wanted them to know that regardless of how it may seem sometimes, we love this Earth," says poet Ada Limón about her poem

By Meghan Bartels

Astronomy

Earliest Merging Galaxies Discovered in New JWST Photos

Astronomers found two colliding galaxies dating back to less than 500 million years after the big bang

By Syris Valentine

Mathematics

Infinity Is Not Always Equal to Infinity

There are infinite real and natural numbers—yet real numbers exceed natural numbers thanks to the mind-bending logic of infinities

By Manon Bischoff

Weather

Supercomputer Will Help Decide whether to Block the Sun

A new supercomputer is helping climate scientists determine whether injecting human-made, sun-blocking aerosols into the stratosphere would also alter thunderstorms and rainfall

By Minho Kim,E&E News