SCIENCE OF THE MONTH: JANUARY 2019

1 January 2018: The United Nations has designated 2019 as the International year of the Periodic Table of the Chemical Elements. The year will coincide with the 150th anniversary of the table’s creation by Dmitry Mendeleev, the Russian chemist who created the first periodic table, in 1869. It will also mark a number of other milestones in the history of chemistry, including the discovery of phosphorus 350 years ago, Antoine Lavoisier’s categorization of 33 elements in 1789 and the formulation of the law of the triads by Johann Wolfgang Döbereiner 190 years ago. The decision was announced by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC), whose proposal to celebrate the periodic table in 2019 coincides with its centenary. Events will be coordinated by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Link: https://iupac.org

2 January 2018: Four billion miles from the sun floats Ultima Thule, an icy celestial body that NASA scientists announced today is aptly shaped like a giant snowman. The first detailed images beamed back from the US agency's New Horizons mission allowed scientists to confidently determine the body was formed when two spheres, or 'lobes', slowly gravitated towards each other until they stuck together, a major scientific discovery. The New Horizons spacecraft flew past Ultima Thule, which was discovered via telescope in 2014 and is the farthest and potentially oldest cosmic body ever observed by a spacecraft. Before that flyby, the only image scientists had was a blurry one showing Ultima Thule's oblong shape, resembling something like a bowling pin or a peanut. The body is roughly 19 miles long and completes its own rotation in about 15 hours. NASA dubbed the larger lobe Ultima, and the other smaller one, Thule. Link: https://www.nasa.gov

3 January 2018: A Chinese spacecraft today made the first-ever landing on the far side of the moon, state media said. The lunar explorer Chang'e 4 touched down at 10:26 a.m. The far side of the moon faces away from Earth and is relatively unexplored. It is also known as the dark side of the moon. The pioneering landing demonstrates China's growing ambitions as a space power. In 2013, Chang'e 3 was the first spacecraft to land on the moon since the Soviet Union's Luna-24 in 1976. The mission of Chang'e 4, which is carrying a rover, includes carrying out low-frequency radio astronomical observations and probing the structure and mineral composition of the terrain. The Long March-3B rocket carrying Chang'e 4 blasted off on December 8, 2018 from Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southern China. In May, a relay satellite Queqiao, or Magpie Bridge was launched to provide communications support between Chang'e 4 and Earth. Link: https://iupac.org