Reuters Science News Summary

Following is a summary of current science news briefs. Backstory: How to capture a rocket

“It’s a challenge to describe that noise,” says Reuters senior photographer Mike Blake, after witnessing his first rocket launch. “It’s a sound of rippling energy. Reverberating, cracking. It’s something that stays with you.” SpaceX confirms crew capsule destroyed in April test accident

Nearly two weeks after a fiery explosion during a ground test of its new crew capsule, SpaceX confirmed on Thursday that the vehicle was destroyed, but neither the company nor NASA, its primary customer, have publicly acknowledged the nature of the mishap. Instead, Hans Koenigsmann, vice president of flight reliability for California-based Space Exploration Technologies Corp, known as SpaceX, continued to refer to the accident simply as an "anomaly" - science jargon for when something goes wrong. First moon landing manual could fetch $9 million at auction

The detailed manual used by U.S. astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to land on the moon in 1969 is going up for auction in July and could fetch up to $9 million, New York auctioneers Christie's said on Wednesday. The 44-page ring-bound Apollo 11 lunar module timeline book details every procedure that was needed to undock, land and rendezvous the Eagle with its Columbia command module when Armstrong and Aldrin became the first men to walk on the moon. Denisovans, mysterious extinct humans, conquered high altitudes

A jawbone found in a cave on the Tibetan Plateau in China is providing surprising insights into Denisovans, the enigmatic extinct cousins to Neanderthals and our own species, including that they were pioneers at enduring high-altitude environments. Scientists on Wednesday described the pivotal new fossil: the right half of the lower jaw of an adolescent, including two teeth, dating from 160,000 years ago.