China has laid out its plans to colonize the Moon inspired by a 1,000-year-old fairytale. The China National Space Administration announced its plans this week to build a "lunar palace" with a goal of hosting humans by 2030. So far the agency is exploring the Moon's South Pole because leaders say it might have water and offer the most sunlight. In the centuries-old Chinese lore, a woman named Chang’e is considered the "goddess of the Moon." As the story goes, Chang'e consumed the elixir of immortality and flew to the Moon. China already has constructed a prototype for its Lunar Palace 1 mission, where student researchers eat mealworms and crops cultivated using fertilizer from their own waste. When Chang'e 4 launches in June, potato seeds and flowering plant arabidopsis will be on board. — QUARTZ

SpaceX will launch five Iridium Next satellites next month. The addition means Iridium — a worldwide voice and data communication firm based in Virgina — will have 55 Iridium Next satellites in space. Iridium says the satellite increase will provide better coverage for its global mobile wireless network. The company has a deal with SpaceX to have a total of 75 Iridium Next satellites in orbit. — RADIO MAGAZINE 

Climate change skeptic Jim Bridenstine was sworn in this week as the new top NASA administrator. Bridenstine, a Republican former congressman from Oklahoma, has no space experience and little science background. Two Republican senators — Marco Rubio of Florida and Jeff Flake of Arizona — ultimately agreed to support Bridenstine, giving him the 50-49 Senate vote. Rubio had said the space agency should be run by a "space professional" and not a politician. It had taken Bridenstine seven months to be confirmed. "I will do my best to serve our storied agency to the utmost of my abilities as we reach for new heights and reveal the unknown for the benefit of humankind," Bridenstine said. — USAT

NASA scientists are baffled by circles in Arctic sea ice. The unexplainable scientific phenomena were discovered about 50 miles northwest of Canada’s Mackenzie River Delta. The circles were discovered by NASA's Operation IceBridge, which is studying global warming and its effects on the Earth's climate (but was not looking for the circles). “We saw these sorta-circular features only for a few minutes today," said IceBridge mission scientist John Sonntag, who took the photo. — WAPO

If a human made it through the cloud cover of Uranus, they'd be welcomed with the smell of rotten eggs. Or, as Forbes notes, "Uranus really does stink." A new study suggests hydrogen sulfide exists in the planet's upper atmosphere. Researchers used the Near-Infrared Integral Field Spectrometer on the Gemini North telescope in Hawaii to better understand the gassy composition. Of course, if a human managed to travel there, the rotten egg smell would be the least of their worries. "Suffocation and exposure in the negative 200 degrees Celsius [minus 328 degrees Fahrenheit] atmosphere, made of mostly hydrogen, helium, and methane, would take its toll long before the smell," said Patrick Irwin, lead author of the study. — FORBES

As the Hubble Space Telescope turned 28 last week, its accomplishments to space exploration were honored. Launched in April 1990, Hubble's mission was to provide information on the size and age of the universe. "When I was a grad student 30 years ago, we were arguing about the size and scale of the universe. Today, thanks to Hubble's' observations, we are down to a couple of percent," NASA scientist Jeff Hayes said. Over the years, Hubble has provided spectacular imagery, including photos released on its April 19 anniversary detailing Lagoon Nebula. On Monday, video of spiral galaxies colliding was released. Hubble's retirement is imminent. NASA sees the future James Webb Space Telescope, which is scheduled for a 2020 launch, as a "successor" rather than "replacement." — UPI

NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) began its climb into orbit on Wednesday after the spacecraft's thrusters were fired. The device is scheduled for a gravity assist maneuver on May 17. Ground controllers in Virginia have been conducting system tests and procedures to make sure the spacecraft is in good operations. Once in place, TESS will observe about 85 percent of the sky looking for exoplanets that are in orbit around the brightest stars. — SPACEFLIGHT NOW

Water could have been delivered to Earth through asteroids hitting the planet at high speeds, new research suggests. At a NASA center in California, researchers shot meteorite-like projectiles at volcanic rock at 11,200 mph. Researchers said that as Earth formed, water-rich asteroids regularly hit the planet. "The origin and transportation of water and volatiles is one of the big questions in planetary science. These experiments reveal a mechanism by which asteroids could deliver water to moons, planets and other asteroids," said Terik Daly, who was part of the study. — SPACE

A book the late Stephen Hawking signed in 1973 is up for auction. Hawking signed the book not long before amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, immobilized his body. His signature, along with other colleagues, is on the title page of the book, "The Archaeology of the Industrial Revolution." The book was signed as a parting gift to a colleague at the Institute of Astronomy (IOA) at the University of Cambridge, in England. Hawking died last month at the age of 76. Bids for the book start at $28,000, and bidding ends at 8 p.m. (EDT) on April 26. — LIVE SCIENCE

It's not just human waistlines that expand with time, galaxies do, too. New research suggests young, thin galaxies grow with time to become "puffier." Researchers have known that age and shape were connected, but the study is the first to link galaxies of all ages, shapes and masses. “As a galaxy ages, internal changes take place and the galaxy may collide with others. These events disorder the stars’ movements," lead author Jesse van de Sande said. As for the Milky Way at 13 billion years old, it's apparently looking pretty good, but its flatter sides do give way to a bulgier middle of older stars. — NEWSWEEK

NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) launched Wednesday night from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The exoplanet hunter was atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The launch initially was set for April 17, but was delayed after SpaceX said it needed more time to conduct guidance, navigation and control tests. NASA expects the $337 million TESS spacecraft will find thousands of exoplanets during its mission. TESS will replace the Kepler space telescope, which launched in 2009 and has discovered about 2,650 exoplanets since. SpaceX's first stage Falcon 9 returned to Earth about 9 minutes after it launched on Wednesday and landed on the company's drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean. — PHYS

Diamonds pieces that fell from space in 2008 belong to an ancient protoplanet that ultimately led to the solar system we know today, a new study suggests. The diamonds were discovered in the Nubian Desert in Sudan. Researchers suggest the diamonds, which were inside a meteorite, originated with a protoplanet that was somewhere between the size of the moon and Mars. It ultimately collided with other objects during the first 10 million years of the solar system. It remains only as pieces now. — NYT

A new study speculates how humans might tell if other intelligent life existed millions of years ago. Researchers called their idea the "Silurian hypothesis" — named after a "Doctor Who" episode in which a reptilian race called Silurians were known to exist before humans. Discovering if such life existed is nearly impossible as researchers say the existence of any civilization is gone after several million years. So researchers turn to evidence such as isotopes of elements like carbon. Humans have burned a considerably high amount of fossil fuels, which alter ratios of certain carbon that can be found in the ocean, in soil and in the atmosphere, and could one day be discovered in sediments. A study co-author said wondering what happened in prior civilizations "could help us think about what effects one might see on other planets, or about what is happening now on Earth." — LIVE SCIENCE

Researchers are searching for the Sun's "siblings." Since 2013, astronomers from Europe and Australia have collected and researched "DNA" from more than 340,000 stars in the Milky Way in an effort to understand how galaxies formed over time. The group of researchers publicly released data for the first time this week. They expect to have researched more than 1 million stars. "No other survey has been able to measure as many elements for as many stars. This data will enable such discoveries as the original star clusters of the galaxy, including the sun's birth cluster and solar siblings," researcher Gayandhi De Silva said. — MASHABLE

The Russian military launched its Blagovest 12L, a high-capacity telecommunications satellite, on Wednesday. Few details are known about the flight and pre-launch operations. The satellite is expected to offer fast data transmission. It was supposed to launch in December 2017, but issues forced a delay until now. Russia is seeking to have four Blagovest satellites in space: one previously launched last August, and two more are expected by 2020. — SPACEFLIGHT INSIDER

An issue with SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket prompted a launch delay of NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). The launch now is set for April 18. In a tweet, SpaceX said it needed more time to conduct guidance, navigation and control tests. When launched, the $337 million spacecraft will search for exoplanets, of which NASA thinks it will find tens of thousands. The satellite's mission will last two years, and replace NASA's Kepler, which is running out of fuel after nearly a decade in space. — NEWSWEEK

Women should be the first astronauts on Mars, senior NASA engineer Allison McIntyre says. The 30-year NASA employee leads an astronaut training center at Johnson Space Center in Houston and said the agency has evolved over her time there. BBC Radio's "5 live" has been documenting women's roles in space technology. Other women explained how they were the only woman among a number of men in their roles. Among the advice women offered to girls dreaming of becoming astronauts or working in space technology is to " be stubborn and follow your heart." — BBC

SpaceX will build its Big Falcon Rocket (BFR) in the Port of Los Angeles, the city's mayor said Monday. The facility is expected to add 750 jobs. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk previously has said that the 348-foot-long spacecraft would fly to the moon, to Mars and beyond. BFR would be capable of carrying up to 50 tons of payload, compared to the 30 tons Falcon Heavy can carry now. L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti said the BFR "holds the promise of taking humanity deeper into the cosmos than ever before." — CURBED LA

An asteroid roughly the size of a football field was about 119,000 miles from Earth's atmosphere Sunday when it flew by. Known as 2018 GE3 asteroid, the space object was discovered Saturday by the Catalina Sky Survey. It whizzed by at about 66,000 mph In comparison, the asteroid was about six times as large as the February 2013 meteor that exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia. It likely would have broken down "due to friction with the air." But as EarthSky notes: "It might make you feel better (or worse) to know that asteroids enter Earth’s atmosphere unnoticed on a fairly regular basis." — LIVE SCIENCE

The annual Lyrid meteor shower is set to peak Sunday morning. The meteor shower returns each year from April 16-25. EarthSky's Bruce McClure says the peak of the shower will occur early April 22. The moon will not obstruct the shower, so it also can be visible April 21 and 23. It has been known to fill the sky with nearly 100 meteors per hour. The shower first was observed in 687 BC in China. — USAT