NASA's Ingenuity Helicopter Sends Final Message From Mars To Earth

NASA'S INGENUITY HELICOPTER
Saying goodbye is never easy, and yesterday, we lost an intergalactic friend, who taught us so much. So, let's take a look at where it all began, hey? The Ingenuity Mars Helicopter made its 287 million kilometre journey to the red planet, on the belly of the Perseverance rover back in 2021, with the goal of finding out if flight was possible in Mars' extreme conditions. It took NASA 6 years of development to give the intergalactic chopper a chance, and on April 19th, 2021, Ingenuity made history with it's first ever 30-second flight! It was only meant to fly five times, but defied all expectations, and flew 72 times! On January 18th this year though, it lost contact with NASA while landing, and crashed, officially ending the mission. Yesterday, Ingenuity beamed it's final signal back down to Earth, commemorated by NASA on social media. This isn't farewell for good, though. NASA say Ingenuity will keep collecting images and weather data until it's memory space is filled up, which could take up to 20 years! But the only way we'll ever see that information, is to go and collect it from Mars.
DUBAI FLOODS
Floods have been causing chaos at one of the world's busiest airports. This was the view from a plane at Dubai's International Airport after United Arab Emirates was hit with its heaviest rainfall in 75 years. It flooded houses, and roads, and brought the city to a standstill. There was also severe flooding in neighbouring Oman, where at least 20 people are thought to have died.
BARCELONA OPEN
Alex De Minaur has conquered the king of the clay in the second round of the Barcelona Open. Taking on former world number one and twelve-time champion Rafael Nadal was a daunting task for the Aussie, but he pulled it off 7-5 6-1.
NATIONAL SWIMMING CHAMPIONSHIPS
Now to swimming, where titan Kaylee McKeown made more than ripples in the water, smashing a 14-year-old Aussie record on the first night of the national swimming championships on the Gold Coast. She powered through the women's 200-metre individual medley in only 2-minutes-and-6-point-9-9-seconds, just under the old record set by Stephanie Rice.
COUCH SURFING
Now put your helmets on because we're charging at full speed over to Darwin. These guys are revving up their lounge chairs in a race like no other. The couch surfing race takes place every year to raise awareness for youth homelessness, which often involves people staying with mates or couch surfing.
BOSTON DYNAMICS UNVEIL NEW ROBOT
An electric humanoid robot? Can we build it, well if by we you mean Boston Dynamics, yes we can! The American Robotics Company is retiring its old Atlas robot, which has been amazing us, and freaking us out a bit, since 2013. While the old one used hydraulics, the new Atlas is fully electric and its creators say it's the future of robotics.
MELBOURNE LEGO EXPO
Now to some elaborate sculptures, made entirely out of Lego! Can we build it? Well, Nathan Sawaya can, and his incredible works are now on display in Melbourne. Like these rhinos and this giant giraffe, they're all so cute - ahh, okay, that one's mildly terrifying.
BALLET RECORD BROKEN
And finally, can you build the strength needed to dance on the tips of your toes? Well, this group of 353 dancers in New York certainly can. And they just came together to try to break the world record for most ballerinas on pointe at the same time! Can they break it? Yes they can!
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For the past 55 years, Behind the News has been helping to break down current issues and events for young people all around the world. The program is a high-energy, fun way for people to learn about the stories we see in the news while providing background information that isn’t usually given by other news bulletins.