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CurioWire publishes fresh curiosities from science, history, nature, technology, space, culture and more. Each day we share short, fascinating stories, unusual discoveries and remarkable facts from around the world. Explore daily curiosities and discover something new.

space25 Oct 2026

Apollo 17 Lunar Sample Opened After 50 Years

NASA opened Apollo 17 core tube 73001 in 2022 to study lunar material and trapped gases that had been sealed since 1972.

science17 Aug 2026

Apollo 12 Lunar Dust Problem Changed Later Moonwalks

Apollo 12 revealed that lunar dust was a significant engineering problem because it clung to gear and crew equipment, leading NASA to improve dust-control procedures for later Moon missions.

space27 Jul 2026

Enceladus Plume Silica Points to Hydrothermal Activity

Cassini detected tiny silica nanoparticles in Enceladus’s plume, providing evidence that warm water inside the moon has interacted with rock through hydrothermal activity.

mystery18 Jul 2026

Antikythera Mechanism Reveals Ancient Greek Astronomical Engineering

The Antikythera mechanism was an ancient Greek bronze device with at least 30 gears that modeled astronomical cycles, including the motions of the Sun and Moon and eclipse patterns.

space13 Jul 2026

NASA LCROSS Moon Crash Found Water Ice

NASA’s LCROSS mission deliberately crashed a rocket stage into a lunar crater and confirmed that water was present in the resulting plume, showing that some permanently shadowed regions on the Moon contain substantial ice.

space10 Jul 2026

Apollo 11 Moonwalk Tapes Were Lost, Not the Footage

Apollo 11’s original SSTV moonwalk source tapes are missing, so the footage people usually see is a lower-resolution broadcast conversion of the live lunar TV signal.

6 Apollo Moonquake Facts That Made the Moon Ring

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space02 Jul 2026

6 Apollo Moonquake Facts That Made the Moon Ring

The article explains how Apollo seismic experiments showed that the Moon experiences impacts and quakes whose vibrations can persist unusually long, revealing a dry, fractured interior that makes the Moon seem to “ring.”

science22 Jun 2026

Apollo 17 Core Sample 73001 Opened After About 50 Years

Apollo 17 core sample 73001 is a rare Moon sample sealed in vacuum on the lunar surface and later opened to study trapped gases and lunar volatiles.

Yellow-Spotted River Turtles Time Nesting Around the Full Moon

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nature02 Jun 2026

Yellow-Spotted River Turtles Time Nesting Around the Full Moon

Researchers have observed that yellow-spotted river turtles nest more often near the full moon and that many hatchlings emerge together in a single-night burst.

space26 May 2026

Luna 9 Images Reached Britain Before Moscow Published Them

Luna 9 became the first spacecraft to make a soft landing on the Moon, and Jodrell Bank later decoded its image signals to publish the first lunar surface panorama before the Soviet release.

Quote Explained

Okay, Houston, we've had a problem here

— Jack Swigert, an Apollo 13 astronaut

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mystery23 May 2026

Jack Swigert's Apollo 13 Problem Call Explained

It marked the first calm verbal sign of the Apollo 13 crisis, signaling that an oxygen tank explosion had turned a Moon mission into a fight to keep the crew alive.

space09 May 2026

Luna 3 and the First Far Side Moon Photos

Luna 3’s 1959 mission photographed the Moon’s far side by developing, scanning, and radioing images from inside the spacecraft instead of sending film back to Earth.

history02 May 2026

Galileo and the Medicean Stars: Why He Named Jupiter's Moons

The article explains how Galileo’s discovery of Jupiter’s four moons was tied to patronage, since he named them the Medicean Stars to honor the Medici family and support his career.

7 Space Instruments That Made Outsized Discoveries

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space24 Apr 2026

7 Space Instruments That Made Outsized Discoveries

The article highlights how compact space instruments have produced outsized scientific discoveries by measuring dust, water, minerals, magnetic fields, elements, and radiation across multiple missions.

space17 Apr 2026

Queqiao Relay Satellite Made Chang'e 4 Far-Side Landing Possible

China’s Chang’e 4 mission used the Queqiao relay satellite to maintain communications with the Moon’s far side during its landing and rover operations.

space12 Apr 2026

Moon Treaty 1979 and the Unsettled Fight Over Lunar Resources

The 1979 Moon Treaty proposed an international framework for using lunar resources, but key space powers never ratified it, leaving current rules over Moon mining unsettled.

space01 Apr 2026

Lunokhod 1's Reflector Became Useful Again After About 40 Years

Modern lunar imaging relocated Lunokhod 1, allowing scientists to use its onboard laser retroreflector again for lunar laser ranging.

history17 Mar 2026

The Great Moon Hoax of 1835 Was Fake News Before the Tabloids

The 1835 New York Sun “Great Moon Hoax” falsely reported that astronomer John Herschel had discovered life on the moon, and the fabricated story was widely believed.

space09 Mar 2026

NASA's Artemis Program Is Designed for More Than a Moon Landing

NASA’s Artemis program is designed to enable repeated lunar missions, a sustained human presence on the Moon, and future deep-space exploration.

space23 Feb 2026

Why Moon Footprints Can Last for Extremely Long Periods

Lunar footprints can stay visible for a very long time because the Moon lacks wind, liquid water, and most other surface-erasing processes found on Earth.

history20 Feb 2026

Cleopatra Is Closer to the Moon Landing Than to the Great Pyramid

The article explains that Cleopatra lived much closer in time to the Moon landing than to the construction of the Great Pyramid of Giza.

history15 Feb 2026

Apollo 11's Computer Wasn't Powerful. It Was Purpose-Built.

The Apollo Guidance Computer helped guide Apollo 11 to the Moon using limited memory and processing power, but it was purpose-built to perform its mission reliably.

crime13 Feb 2026

How a Honeymoon Diving Death Became the Tina Watson Murder Case

Tina Watson died while scuba diving on her honeymoon, and the case later became a disputed criminal matter that ended with Gabe Watson pleading guilty in Australia to manslaughter.

space12 Feb 2026

Why Saturn's 285 Moons Keep Changing the Picture

Saturn currently has 285 confirmed moons, and the article explains that the total keeps changing as better observations and stricter confirmation reveal smaller satellites.