Reuters Science News Summary

Following is a summary of current science news briefs. Israeli spacecraft crashes onto moon after technical failures

Israeli spacecraft Beresheet crashed onto the moon on Thursday after a series of technical failures during its final descent, shattering hopes of a historic controlled landing on the lunar surface. The unmanned robotic lander suffered periodic engine and communications failures during the landing sequence, which lasted around 21 minutes, the support team said. Virgin Galactic's first test passenger gets commercial astronaut wings

Virgin Galactic’s first test passenger received her commercial astronaut wings from the U.S. aviation regulator on Tuesday after flying on the company’s rocket plane to evaluate the customer experience in February. Virgin Galactic’s chief astronaut instructor, Beth Moses, who is a former NASA engineer, became the first woman to fly to space on a commercial vehicle when she joined pilots David Mackay and Mike Masucci on SpaceShipTwo VSS Unity. Fossils of enigmatic extinct human species found on Philippine island

Thirteen fossil bones and teeth excavated in a cave in the Philippines represent an enigmatic previously unknown human species, probably small in stature and possessing an unexpected mix of archaic and modern traits, scientists said on Wednesday. The discovery of remains of at least three individuals from this species, named Homo luzonensis, in Callao Cave on the northern part of the island of Luzon marked the second time in the 21st century that a bygone member of the human family has been found on southeast Asian islands. Remarkable image of black hole released in astrophysics breakthrough

An international scientific team on Wednesday announced a milestone in astrophysics - the first-ever photo of a black hole - using a global network of telescopes to gain insight into celestial objects with gravitational fields so strong no matter or light can escape. The research was conducted by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) project, an international collaboration begun in 2012 to try to directly observe the immediate environment of a black hole using a global network of Earth-based telescopes. The announcement was made in simultaneous news conferences in Washington, Brussels, Santiago, Shanghai, Taipei and Tokyo. Elon Musk's SpaceX sends world's most powerful rocket on first commercial flight

The most powerful operational rocket in the world, SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy, launched its first commercial mission on Thursday from Florida in a key demonstration for billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk's space company in the race to grasp lucrative military launch contracts. The 23-story-tall Heavy, which previously launched Musk’s cherry red Tesla roadster to space in a 2018 debut test flight, blasted off from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center carrying its first customer payload. Oh, brother! NASA twins study shows how space changes the human body

An American astronaut experienced multiple biological changes in space but returned to normal - with some exceptions - after coming back to Earth, according to a study involving twin brothers that shed light on how space flight affects the human body. In research published on Thursday, scientists compared Scott Kelly to identical twin Mark Kelly after Scott spent 340 days in orbit on the International Space Station and Mark remained Earth-bound. Both are now retired as NASA astronauts, and Mark is running for a U.S. Senate seat in Arizona.