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The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has decided to send its first-ever robotic rover to hunt water-ice on Moon. The Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover or VIPER has been scheduled to land on the Moon surface in the year 2023. Now, the US space agency has revealed the exact location where VIPER will land. NASA has said that its golf cart-sized rover will land close to the western edge of Nobile Crater. The 73km-wide depression is near the south police of the Moon and remains almost permanently in shadow. The VIPER mission is part of NASA’s Artemis program that will help researchers in the proposed human exploration of the Moon. NASA plans to send astronauts to the moon and the VIPER mission can be considered the first step in that direction. This is because VIPER would search for the presence of water-ice on the lunar surface. Astronauts could mine ice during their stay at Moon and use it as drinking water and rocket fuel. This could pave the way for long-term presence of humans on the only natural satellite of Earth. It must be noted that under its Artemis program, the space agency would send the first woman and the first person of colour on the lunar surface.

The rover will fly to the Moon aboard a Grigin lander built by Pittsburgh-based company Astrobotic. It will be launched atop on a SpaceX Falcon-Heavy rocket. Daniel Andrews, VIPER project manager, said that select a landing site for the mission was an important decision. “It took our researchers years to finalize a landing site. They evaluated the polar region very deeply before decided that VIPER will explore it. It was not only important but an exciting decision to make. VIPER is all set to walk into uncharted territory. It will perform the very critical tasks and pave the way for future human space exploration,” Andrews said. The location picked for the landing of the VIPER is of the coldest areas in our solar system. The South Pole has not been explored by any prior missions to the Moon. The studies about the region have so far been done by scientists using remote sensing instruments. This includes the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite of the US space agency. But these studies helped scientists to reach to the conclusion that any possibility of the presence of ice and other potential resources would only be in permanently shadowed areas near the poles.

Thomas Zurbuchen, the associate administrator for science at NASA Headquarters, said that data provided by VIPER will help lunar scientists around the world have better understand of the Moon. “VIPER, which will be powered by solar power, will start providing information once it will land on the lunar surface. The rover will try to look for any presence of water and other resources on the lunar surface. It will explore South Pole and areas around Nobile Crater. The information provided by the VIPER will also help future Artemis missions to the Moon. This will help scientists better understand the environment of the lunar surface which so far remains unexplored,” Zurbuchen said. Nobile is a crater on the lunar surface that was formed after a collision with another smaller celestial body. The part of the Moon is almost permanently covered in shadows. This leads to a lower temperature and allowing ice to exist. There are some more accessible craters around Nobile and could be ideal locations for VIPER to search for ice. The area of the Nobile Crater is around 36 square miles. VIPER will weigh around 450 kgs or 950 pound and will continue to search for water ice for at least 100 Earth days. The rover will use a drill and three spectrometers to obtain samples as deep as 3.3 feet or 1 meter underground.

A new report has given some new insights into an unanswered question about the COVID19 pandemic that has hit the world in 2019. Scientists have said that it is uncertain how many people might have contracted the virus but have never been diagnosed with the SARS-CoV-2 virus formally. Health experts from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have reported that the frequency of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in the US last year during spring and summer has been much higher than the official number of cases. The new study has shown that there have been nearly 4.8 undiagnosed cases of COVID19 for every identified case. The figure shows that there have been around 16.8 million undiagnosed cases of COVID19 by July 2020. The authors of the study have said that the data show that there has been a massive spread of the virus during the first six months of the pandemic as compared to what experts have perceived. The outcomes of the new report have been released in the journal called Science Translational Medicine.

Other experts who have not been involved in the study have said that the findings do not show how many undiagnosed cases of COVID19 might be there in the US at present. As per the latest data, the total number of officially diagnosed cases of COVID19 in the US has reached 33.4 million this week. The lead author of the study, Dr. Matthew J Memoli from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has said that many people who have contracted the virus that leads to COVID19 might not have any symptoms or have mild symptoms, which is a hallmark of the pandemic. The lead author of the study has said that to count the number of all symptomatic patients of COVID19 in the US it is crucial to assert the effect of the pandemic and public health response. He has said that to have a full and clear picture of the prevalence of COVID19, it needs to count those people who are infected and have not been formally diagnosed with the disease.

The authors of the study have come up with these findings after looking at a representative sample of 8000 people who have not been formally diagnosed with COVID19. They have looked for antibodies for COVID19 in these patients. The study has come at a time when the US government is trying hard to vaccinate as many people as possible against COVID19, as a new and more contagious, and deadly Delta variant is circulating in the country. Many past studies have shown that a huge number of cases remains undiagnosed in the US. An expert from Columbia University has claimed that the number of undetected people continues to be many times greater as compared to the number of people who have been diagnosed. Dr. Thomas Tsai, who is a professor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, has said that at present there might be much higher levels of disease-induced immunity among people in the US than what experts have been expecting. Health experts have said that still, people should take the shot even if they have infection acquired immunity.

A large-scale study has found that people who have been diagnosed with cancer recently are more prone to catch COVID19 infection. They are at a greater risk of being diagnosed with severe COVID19 disease as well. As per the study, the risk is significantly high among Black people as compared to white people for both ailments. Experts have used artificial intelligence to observe the data of nearly 73 million people’s electronic health records in the US. They have said that people who have been diagnosed with leukemia, non-Hodgkins lymphoma, or lung cancer within a year are at a higher risk of COVID19 as compared to people who have been diagnosed with cancer long ago or have never been diagnosed with the dreaded disease. The risk of COVID19 has been even higher for Black people with cancer who have been diagnosed with breast, prostate, colorectal, or lung cancer.

The co-author of the study, Nathan Berger has said that African Americans, who have been detected with cancer, have been at a higher risk of COVID19 as compared to Caucasians. Black people are more likely to be hospitalized due to cancer alone and COVID19 or due to both diseases as compared to white people, said the author. Experts have said that death rates among Black people and white people have not reached statistical significance; the death rate among black people has been 18.5 percent and 13.5 percent among white people. The new study has found that death rates among Black and white people have been quite similar inside the hospitals, however, the death rate among Black people has been excessively high outside the hospitals. The combined rate of risk of cancer and COVID19 has been quite higher than the total number of cases with both diseases. Berger has said that a combination of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and cancer is quite interactive, which might lead to death. The death rate of this combination is quite higher than either of these ailments alone. The findings of the new study have been released in the journal JAMA Oncology.

Experts have said that blood cancers, such as leukemia or lymphoma occur when immune cells stop functioning the way they should, which helps the virus to invade the body easily. The COVID19 affects multiple organs in the body and mainly attacks the lungs. Therefore, lungs ruptured by cancer will be more vulnerable to COVID19. The duration of time since cancer has been diagnosed as well will contribute to the risk of COVID19. People who have been detected with cancer more recently will have a low level of immunity at the beginning of the treatment, which will allow the virus to infect more easily than those who have been diagnosed with cancer long ago. There are many societal factors responsible for Black people being at a higher risk of hospitalization due to cancer and COVID19. The rate of hospitalization for Black people is nearly 55.6 percent whereas, it goes down to be 43.2 percent for white people. Experts have said that low income, less opportunity to work from home, lack of access to medical care, and crowded housing might be the reasons for Black people being at a higher risk of both diseases. The new study has adjusted comorbidities such as diabetes, heart issues, hypertension, asthma, and obesity as well in the study, which are known to put people at a greater risk of coronavirus. Experts have said that even after excluding these factors, Black people have been at a 32.5 percent risk of COVID19 as compared to white people who have been at 19.1 percent risk of the virus.