A new map of the universe displays for the first time the span of the entire known cosmos with pinpoint accuracy and sweeping beauty.

Created by Johns Hopkins University astronomers with data mined over two decades by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, the map allows the public to experience data previously only accessible to scientists.

The interactive map, which depicts the actual position and real colors of 200,000 galaxies, is available online, where it can also be downloaded for free.

"Growing up I was very inspired by astronomy pictures, stars, nebulae and galaxies, and now it's our time to create a new type of picture to inspire people," says map creator Brice Ménard, a professor at Johns Hopkins.

"Astrophysicists around the world have been analyzing this data for years, leading to thousands of scientific papers and discoveries. But nobody took the time to create a map that is beautiful, scientifically accurate, and accessible to people who are not scientists.

NASA has just launched its first rocket in the Artemis program, which will, among other things, take scientific experiments to produce metal on the moon.

In recent years, a number of businesses and organizations have ramped up efforts to establish technologies on the moon. But doing work in space is expensive. Sending just one kilogram of material to the moon can cost US$1.2 million (A$1.89 million).

What if we could save money by using the resources that are already there? This process is called in-situ resource utilization, and it's exactly what astrometallurgy researchers are trying to achieve.

Why the moon?

The moon has amazing potential for future space exploration. Its gravity is only one-sixth as strong as Earth's, which makes it much easier to fly things from the moon to Earth's orbit than to fly them direct from Earth! And in an industry where every kilogram costs a fortune, the ability to save money is extremely attractive.

Although people have been looking at making oxygen and rocket fuel

In France, the Study and Information Group on Unidentified Aerospace Phenomena (GEIPAN), has been investigating unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs)—more commonly known as UFOs—for the past 45 years. Attached to the National Centre for Space Studies (CNES), GEIPAN has been invited by NASA to present its activities and working methods before a newly established independent team that will study data and set up methods to analyze unusual phenomena observed in the sky.

Set up in 1977, GEIPAN is a team of four experts tasked with gathering witness accounts, conducting surveys, publishing studies, managing computer systems and overseeing the organization's operations. A technical department at CNES, it relies on outside personnel, expertise and talent, liaising with numerous investigators, experts and institutions, including France's Air Force, National Gendarmerie and Police Force, the Directorate General for Civil Aviation, the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and the weather service Météo-France.

About a decade ago, the prospect of "asteroid mining" saw a massive surge in interest. This was due largely to the rise of the commercial space sector and the belief that harvesting resources from space would soon become a reality. What had been the stuff of science fiction and futurist predictions was now being talked about seriously in the business sector, with many claiming that the future of resource exploitation and manufacturing lay in space. Since then, there's been a bit of a cooling off as these hopes failed to materialize in the expected timeframe.

Nevertheless, there is little doubt that a human presence in space will entail harvesting resources from Near Earth Asteroids (NEAs) and beyond. In a recent paper, a team of researchers from the University of Nottingham in Ningbo, China, examined the potential impact of asteroid mining on the global economy.