A privately-built uncrewed American spacecraft is orbiting the Moon in preparation for touchdown on the lunar surface. If successful, it will be the first time an American mission has returned to the Moon for more than fifty years. The six-legged Odysseus lander is aiming to set down in a crater near the south pole. It’s carrying scientific instruments to observe space weather and other phenomena, to inform NASA’s plans to send humans back to the Moon before China makes its own first attempt. We speak to NASA.

Also in the programme: Could a ruling from the Alabama Supreme Court that frozen embryos are to be considered children cause problems for the Republican Party? And we go deep beneath the sea and find out how the world's largest whales produce their haunting sounds.

(Photo: Computer Generated Image issued by Intuitive Machines/NASA of an artist's impression of Intuitive Machine's Nova-C Odysseus lander. The private lunar space probe is looking to make history. Issue date: Monday February 12, 2024. Credit: Intuitive Machines/Nasa/PA Wire)