Bone up on science for our 2025 quiz

c. The first successful commercial lunar landing. Built by Firefly Aerospace of Cedar Park, Tex., Blue Ghost Mission 1 touched down on Mare Crisium upright and in good working order – a first for commercial spacecraft after a number of previous attempts by others. During its two weeks of operations, Blue Ghost also witnessed the sun disappear behind Earth during a total eclipse of the moon on March 14 – but it was not the first lunar lander to do so. The U.S. robotic probe Surveyor 3 was on the moon during a total eclipse on April 24, 1967, and captured a grainy image of the event.

d. The Vera Rubin Observatory's telescope has an unusually wide field that captured the two nebulas in stunning detail. After seeing first light this year, the facility’s main task will be to survey the entire sky every three nights to spot changes and to map the deep universe.

b. It came from another solar system. The comet’s orbit has the shape of a hyperbola, which means it isn’t bound by the sun’s gravity and is just passing through after having escaped another solar system long ago. The comet’s extrasolar origins have fuelled an endless (and mostly unscientific) stream of online speculation about whether or not it is an alien spacecraft. So far the comet has not weighed in on this idea.

a. They are extremely porous. The molecular structure of MOFs create tiny spaces that can hold surprisingly large volumes of other molecules, including gases. First developed in the 1980s and 90s, they have potential applications for storing carbon or trapping toxins during environmental cleanups.

c. It contains Earth’s oldest rocks found to date. In a June study, scientists used isotopes to show that some intrusions in the belt solidified about 4.2 billion years ago. That means they formed during the Hadean Eon – the mysterious and extreme first chapter of Earth’s geologic history.

b. Kamchatka, Russia. The two earthquakes off the coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula occurred on July 29 and Sept. 18. The first of those registered a whopping 8.8 magnitude, and is tied with past events in Chile and Ecuador for the sixth-strongest earthquake ever recorded. Because of its remote location, only one death was indirectly caused by the first Russian earthquake, during tsunami evacuation procedures in Japan. The second quake in the same Kamchatka region was an aftershock of the first. It was a magnitude 7.8 event and caused no deaths.

c. Melissa was a Category 5 hurricane on Oct. 28 when it made landfall in Jamaica to devastating effect. It is the third-most intense Atlantic hurricane ever recorded. An attribution study determined that such severe events are now approximately five times more likely in that part of the Caribbean Sea because of human-caused global warming.

a. Axel Heiberg Island. It took just over four weeks to drill the ice core, which carries a record of more than 10,000 years of Canadian Arctic climate history within its frozen layers.

d. Devon Island. In 1984, paleontologist Mary Dawson spotted a tooth – the first piece of “Frosty” the rhino – emerging from the permafrost in the Haughton impact crater on Devon Island.

a. Cats. The Italian study, published in November, points to a relatively recent arrival for domestic cats in Europe, contrary to earlier thinking. Scientists say cats could have hitched a ride on grain ships sailing for Rome from North Africa.

c. Green sea turtles. In a significant win for conservationists, the green sea turtle is now in the “least concern” category after many years as an endangered species. The IUCN estimates the turtle’s global population has rebounded about 28 per cent since the 1970s.

a. The teaching of evolution. High school science teacher John Scopes was tried for teaching about human evolution in violation of state law. Scopes was found guilty but the ruling was later overturned on a technicality. Unrelated to the trial, no chimpanzees were used in the 1918 production of Tarzan of the Apes, which instead employed human actors in ape costumes. Their performances have since been judged “unconvincing.”

d. Sex organs. In a study published in the journal Nature, the researchers identified a section of DNA known as 5DOM to be associated with the development of human hands and feet. They then found that a version of the same gene was involved in the development of the anus and sexual organs of a zebrafish. This suggests 5DOM played a similar role in the common ancestor we share with the fish.

c. First use of individualized gene editing to treat a disease. In May, scientists reported that they used a version of the gene-editing technology called CRISPR to correct a gene that produced a faulty version of an enzyme needed for normal metabolism. Because the treatment was specific to the genetic makeup of KJ Muldoon, it ushers in an era of personalized genetic editing as a treatment for rare disease.

a. Alzheimer’s disease. Despite promising signs from observational studies, two large clinical trials this year found that the weight-loss drugs did not significantly slow the progress of Alzheimer’s disease in early-stage patients.

d. 32. The study, published in the journal Nature Communications, identified four turning points during which the wiring pattern of the brain undergoes a pronounced shift. The child to adolescent shift typically occurs around age nine, the adolescent to adult shift at about 32, adult to early aging at about 66, and early aging to late aging at about 83.

a. Making fire. As reported in the journal Nature, researchers working at a site near the village of Barnham in Suffolk found evidence of heated sediments and fire-cracked flint hand axes, along with fragments of iron pyrite – a mineral used to strike sparks with flint.

b. Parachutes. The researchers found that parachutes made with a mathematical pattern of cuts could descend in a more predictable way, to facilitate dropping packages with improved accuracy.

a. Renewable energy overtook coal as a source of electricity. For now, at least, the other answers listed are definitely not true – but they remain worthy goals to strive for.

d. In space. According to a November announcement from the company, the project “envisions compact constellations of solar-powered satellites” that would communicate via lasers and perform the massive calculations required by AI and other advanced applications.