The First Moon Landing Wasn’t Apollo — And We Just Found It

Take courses in science and mathematics on Brilliant! Start learning for free at https://brilliant.org/sabine/ and get a 30-day free trial plus 20% off a premium subscription, which includes daily unlimited access! The first ever human spacecraft to land on the moon wasn’t Apollo 11 – it was the Soviet Luna 9 probe, which touched down three years before the Apollo lander. For decades, researchers have for some reason been unable to track down its location … up until now. In a recent paper, researchers wrote that they used a neural network to discover the probe (with 70-80% confidence). Let’s take a look. Paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s44453-025-00020-x 👕T-shirts, mugs, posters and more: ➜ https://sabines-store.dashery.com/ 💌 Support me on Donorbox ➜ https://donorbox.org/swtg 👉 Transcript with links to references on Patreon ➜ https://www.patreon.com/Sabine 📝 Transcripts and written news on Substack ➜ https://sciencewtg.substack.com/ 📩 Free weekly science newsletter ➜ https://sabinehossenfelder.com/newsletter/ 👂 Audio only podcast ➜ https://open.spotify.com/show/0MkNfXlKnMPEUMEeKQYmYC 🔗 Join this channel to get access to perks ➜ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1yNl2E66ZzKApQdRuTQ4tw/join 📚 Buy my book ➜ https://amzn.to/3HSAWJW #science #sciencenews #space #tech #moon