A mysterious object crashed into the Moon last year, and scientists think they’ve finally figured out what it was. On March 4, 2022, a piece of space junk hurtled towards the surface of our celestial companion, leaving behind not one but two craters – prompting speculation as to what exactly the manmade object was. And now, in a paper published in the Planetary Science Journal, a team of researchers at the University of Arizona (UArizona) have offered “definitive proof” that it was a booster from a Chinese space rocket that had spent several years hurtling through space. But the most interesting part of all this? The defunct piece of spacecraft was apparently carrying a secret cargo. Initially, based on its path through the sky, the UArizona team thought it was an errant SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket booster from a 2015 launch. However, after analysing how precise light signals bounced off its surface, they later concluded that it was more likely to be a booster from a Chang'e 5-T1 – a rocket launched back in 2014 as part of China’s lunar exploration programme. And yet, the Chinese space agency denied ownership, insisting that their rocket booster burned up in the Earth's atmosphere upon re-entry. But the US Space Command refuted this claim by revealing that the rocket’s third stage never re-entered the planet’s atmosphere. Furthermore, two key pieces of evidence gathered by the UArizona researchers suggested that there was more to the object than just a simple abandoned rocket booster. Firstly, the way it reflected light. The paper’s lead author, Tanner Campbell, explained in a statement: "Something that's been in space as long as this is subjected to forces from the Earth's and the moon's gravity and the light from the sun, so you would expect it to wobble a little bit, particularly when you consider that the rocket body is a big empty shell with a heavy engine on one side. “But this was just tumbling end-over-end, in a very stable way." In other words, the rocket booster must have had some kind of counterweight to its two engines, each of which would have weighed around 545kg (1,200lbs) without fuel. The stability with which the object rotated led Campbell and his colleagues to deduce that “there must have been something more mounted to [its] front”. Secondly, the team were struck by the impact the booster left when it slammed into the Moon. It created two craters, around 100ft (30.5 metres) apart, instead of one, which, according to Campbell was very unusual. He pointed out that the craters left behind by Apollo rockets are either round, if the object came straight down, or oblong if it crashed down at a shallow angle. "This is the first time we see a double crater," he said. "We know that in the case of Chang'e 5 T1, its impact was almost straight down, and to get those two craters of about the same size, you need two roughly equal masses that are apart from each other." And yet, despite the rigour of their investigation, the UArizona team have been unable to identify what exactly this additional object was. "We have no idea what it might have been – perhaps some extra support structure, or additional instrumentation, or something else," Campbell admitted. "We probably won't ever know." Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings

Apple is making a small but already controversial tweak in the upcoming iPhone update. The company revealed iOS 17 at its Worldwide Developers Conference, in June. It showed off a range of features: new images that will show when you call someone, redesigned messages and stickers, and a new “StandBy” mode that allows the phone to be used as an ambient display when turned on its side. But another change has already received as much discussion as those more substantial updates. And it relates to the button you use to put the phone down. Until now, that button was in the middle of the screen, on its own. That meant among other things it was easy to press without accidentally hitting anything else, and that you could be confident of doing so. But a recent update to the iOS 17 beta – which allows users to test out the new software as it is developed, before everyone else – moved that button to the bottom-right of the screen, and put it alongside other buttons. Then another update to that beta arrived this week, which moved that back to the middle of the bottom of the display, but still left it among other buttons. The relocation is already proving controversial among users who are adjusted to knowing where to press to end their call. Moving the buttons together at the bottom of the display is presumably an attempt to leave more space for the new Contact Posters that show when someone calls. But it is not clear why Apple moved the button around, and then replaced it. The change is just one of a range of alterations to the usually neglected Phone app in iOS 17. The update also brings new Contact Posters that people can design to show on others’ phones when they call, the option to leave a message when someone doesn’t pick up FaceTime calls, and a new live voicemails tool that answers the phone on your behalf and transcribes what people say. The full release of iOS 17 is expected to come next month, just before the launch of the iPhone 15. That too will make a change to the real buttons on the device: widespread rumours suggest that the toggle on the side of the phone that switches into silent mode will be replaced with an “action button” that can be configured by the user. Read More Bitcoin’s price is crashing dramatically AI poses a profound threat – but could also help save us, experts agree Study finds popular accessory likely makes no difference to sleep quality, eye health

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Will.i.am has hailed artificial intelligence (AI) as a “new renaissance” in music. The 48-year-old musician and member of the Black Eyed Peas expressed an optimistic view of new music software, which can be used to produce and create songs. He told ITV’s Good Morning Britain: “People have to decide what types of songs they want to write because, although I wrote songs like Boom Boom Pow and I Gotta Feeling and Where Is the Love?, the machine is going to write amazing versions or original Boom Boom Pows.” He added that people “desire” songs which can be a “social commentary” on the news, something AI is “going to be able to do”. “It’s a very, very, very unique world that we’re entering into. It’s a new renaissance.” He said new technology does not just “mimic” what he does but creates something new. “It was a brand new song and it wrote it the way I would have written it.” He went on: “The concern is what we do as people and the regulation and guidelines that we put on folks that are building the models. “The fact that AI mimics, but at the same time we haven’t put in clauses for where people own their likeness in their essence… well, that’s one thing. AI’s not deciding that, people are.” However, other famous faces such as Dolly Parton and Charlie Brooker have raised concerns about AI. Black Mirror creator Brooker told Empire Magazine that using the ChatGPT tool had produced something which read plausibly “at first glance” but did not contain “any real original thought”. He also told the PA news agency that the AI advances explored in the latest episode of the Netflix series could be used in a “frankly terrifying way”. Brooker was referring to an episode of the dystopian anthology show in which a woman finds her life replicated by streaming platform Streamberry. Parton was asked at a press event last week about living on in an artificial form in the future. She said: “I think I’ve left a great body of work behind. “I have to decide how much of that high-tech stuff I want to be involved because I don’t want to leave my soul here on this Earth.” Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live Heart transplant woman’s daughter twice saved her life using Alexa Dolly Parton on AI and not wanting to leave her soul ‘here on earth’ Glastonbury festival-goers use data equivalent to 400 HD film downloads an hour

Here's the best COD MW3 Black Friday sales for 2023, including console bundles for the PlayStation 5 Slim and Xbox Series X at Target, Walmart, and more.

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