Zond 6 was an unmanned Soviet mission to the Moon that launched in November 1968. This was just one month before the US launched the manned Apollo 8 mission, which successfully orbited the Moon.

Radio signals from Zond 6 were captured by astronomers at the UK’s Jodrell Bank observatory and the audio was preserved on a reel-to-reel tape. Now, 50 years later, the observatory is releasing the audio. Although no-one was aboard the spacecraft, the broadcast included human voices – either being relayed from Earth and back, or from an on-board recording.

Not having a Russian speaker on-site, Jodrell Bank astronomer Tim O’Brien asked his University of Manchester colleague Kostya Novoselov to translate. Novoselov’s day job is studying graphene, for which he shared the 2010 Nobel Prize for Physics with Andre Geim.

Moving on to Mars, have you ever wondered how an architect would design buildings on the Red Planet? SWNS digital has the answer in “Prototypes reveal what living conditions on Mars might look like when colonised by humans”.

SWNS digital also asked people in the UK what they would do with the extra 37 min per day that they would have if they lived on Mars?

I don’t know about you, but I would look forward to an extra 37 min of not hearing about Brexit.