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Have you ever wondered how the US space agency NASA decides where it will land a spacecraft on way back to earth. The excitement-packed question has got an answer from C Stuart Hardwick, award-winning science fiction author, on Quora.

Quora is popular knowledge sharing network where people with unique insights give answers to compelling questions.

The pints of spacecraft landing are selected and orchestrated with the help of what the US military calls backwards planning.

For the US space shuttle, the selection of landing sites was done prior to the first launch. Besides the two primary sites that were Edwards AFB and the Cape in FL, emergency locations were shortlisted worldwide on the basis of availability of runway availability, political and security issues, and logistics.

The multi-headed Hydra monster of Greek mythology is more terrifying as compared to its real-life namesake: a species of tiny freshwater polyps that feeds on shrimp and other tiny invertebrates.

However, the less than one-inch creatures possess a fearsome capability that could knock out even the original Hydra. The tiny freshwater-dwelling hydra, whenever eats, has to rip apart their mouth. It might sound strange but research teams have been wondering over this phenomenon for quite long.

Their tubular bodies’ opening isn’t only closed, instead their mouths actually disappear until the time comes to digest dinner, which they obtain using poison-barbed tentacles. When they are done with it, their opening gets sealed up again with a tissue layer.

Common Bluebottles, an Australasia species of swallowtail butterfly, holds the record of the highest number of different vision cells within eyes in comparison to any other insect.

Researchers, who have been studying these big-eyed butterflies, have found that the species, Graphium sarpedon, possess around 15 classes of light-detecting vision cells, called photoreceptors. So far, no insect was known to have over nine.

Photoreceptors can be compared to the rods and cones present in the human eye. Common Bluebottles flaunt extraordinary big eyes and blue-green iridescent wings use visual communication, suggestive of the fact that they have unbelievable vision. Moreover, researchers haven’t expected that they would come across something like this.

The US space agency’s commercial partner Orbital ATK is looking forward to launch its Cygnus spacecraft into orbit on March 22, 2016, atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket for its fifth contracted resupply mission to the International Space Station (ISS).

Known as Orbital ATK CRS-6, the flight will deliver experiments to the ISS to analyze fire, regolith, adhesion, meteors, and 3-D printing in microgravity.

The Spacecraft Fire Experiment-I (Saffire-I) deliberately lights huge-scale fire within an empty Cygnus resupply vehicle, post escaping the space station and prior to it makes an entry into Earth's atmosphere again.

Climate change is behind wiping out ichthyosaurs, marine reptiles that were the rulers of the oceans for 157 million years, as suggested by a study of fossils.

Some 30 million years back, the dolphin-like animal died prior to the mass dinosaur extinction towards the end of the Cretaceous period, 66 million years back.

Vertebrate paleontologist Dr. Valentin Fischer, who headed the research, said that the extinction of ichthyosaurs, which were quite familiar to oceanic life, has been a long-standing enigma. The research has recently appeared in journal Nature Communications.

Jeff Bezos’ aerospace company Blue Origin is planning its first crewed test flight next year. The company founder revealed the new plan near Seattle while having a tour of venture's research and development site.

Bezos said that many individuals have shown interest in having a commercial space flight. But Blue Origin has not yet started taking deposits from interested people, so it is still unclear whether those individuals will pay for a space trip.