Archaeologists have spent months excavating a lost temple that disappeared for nearly a millennium in downtown Chengdu, capital of southwest China’s Sichuan Province.

The Fugan Temple was a famous temple that lasted from the Eastern Jin Dynasty (317-420) to the Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279).

Daoxuan, a famous Tang Dynasty (618-907) monk, once wrote that an official rite to pray for rain to end a persistent drought was held in front of the temple, and it rained as if the prayers had been heard in heaven.

The story was the record of how the temple got its name, Fugan, which means “perceive the blessing.”

Famous Tang Dynasty poet Liu Yuxi left a poem to commemorate the temple’s renovation, describing its heavenly appearance. The poem further noted the temple’s important role at that time.

However, the building was worn down during the later period of the Tang and Song dynasties, with all traces of the temple disappearing during wars.

Archaeologists unearthed more than 1,000 tablets inscribed with Buddhist scriptures and over 500 pieces of stone sculpture as well as glazed tiles with inscriptions.

“We have only excavated a part of the temple’s area, but already have a glimpse of its past glory,” said Yi Li, who led the excavation project.

He said they have found the temple’s foundation, ruins of surrounding buildings, wells, roads and ditches.

During the excavation, archaeologists found some 80 ancient tombs scattered near the temple, dating back to Shang and Zhou dynasties (1600-256 BC). In the temple’s surroundings, they have unearthed large amounts of household tools and utensils and building materials dating back to various periods from the Song to Ming dynasties.

Chengdu became an economic and cultural center in western China during the Sui and Tang dynasties. The temple’s discovery could greatly contribute to the study of the spread of Buddhism in China during that time, said Wang Yi, director of the Chengdu Cultural Relic Research Institute.

The BRICS Media Forum, to be held in Beijing from June 7 to 8, will be attended by the leaders of 25 media groups from Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

The attendees will discuss topics including multimedia innovation for media development, as well as media outlets’ duty and social responsibility.

The forum next week aims to improve the high-end dialogue platform for the mainstream media of BRICS countries, as well as advance innovation and promote fairness and justice of international public opinion.

During the forum, there will be a BRICS Media Joint Photo Exhibition to show the development and cooperation achievements of BRICS.

Proposed by Xinhua, the forum is jointly organized by the mainstream media groups of BRICS countries.

China, which took over the BRICS presidency this year, will host the Ninth BRICS Summit in September in Xiamen, Fujian Province.

Norwegian Joy, the largest cruise ship in Asia and custom-built for Chinese market, began its maiden voyage from east China’s Qingdao City Saturday.

Norwegian Joy is capable of accommodating nearly 5,000 passengers and 1,900 crew members. A total of 28 restaurants onboard offer international dining. A two-level Kart racing track, virtual reality games, and Broadway musical shows are provided for entertainment.

Qingdao international cruise homeport has three exclusive berths for cruise ships, with a maximum customs clearance capacity of 3,000 to 4,000 people per hour.

A total of 171 ships with 300,000 passengers onboard have been received so far, according to Liu Min, spokesperson of Qingdao Port Group.

The port is currently operating 15 routes in cooperation with seven cruise companies across the globe. Over 100 ships are expected to berth and depart the port in 2017.

Automotive vehicles have emerged as a major source of China’s air pollution, according to a report released by the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) on Saturday.

China had 295 million automotive vehicles on its roads as of the end of last year, emitting pollutants weighing about 44.725 million tonnes, down 1.3 percent year on year, the report showed.

Analysis of air pollutants of 15 major Chinese cities showed that local mobile emitters, a category that includes vehicles, contributed to about 13.5 percent to 41 percent of total fine particle concentration, according to Liu Bingjiang, a senior official with MEP.

The MEP will enhance supervision on the production, use and elimination of automotive vehicles to reduce air pollution, Liu added.

SpaceX on Saturday launched a shipment of supplies for the astronauts living at the International Space Station, carrying for the first time an experiment independently designed by China.

The SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft lifted off on the company’s Falcon 9 rocket at 5:07 p.m. EDT (2107 GMT) from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

About 10 minutes later, SpaceX successfully landed the rocket’s first stage at the company’s Landing Zone 1, just south of the launch site at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, as part of its effort to develop fully reusable rockets.

On this trip, the Dragon will deliver almost 6,000 pounds (2,700 km) of supplies, including solar panels, tools for Earth-observation and equipment to study neutron stars. If all goes well, it will arrive at the space station on Monday.

Chinese experiment

Among the cargo is a 3.5-kilogram device from the Beijing Institute of Technology that sought to answer questions like “Does the space radiation and microgravity cause mutations among antibody-encoding genes and how does it happen?”

The Chinese payload was first reported in 2015, when an agreement was reached with NanoRacks, a Houston-based company that offers services for the commercial utilization of the space station.

Under the agreement, NanoRacks will deliver the device to the U.S. side of the space station and astronauts there will conduct studies using the device in about two weeks, data from which will be sent back to the Chinese researchers.

There is a U.S. law in place, known as the Wolf amendment, that bans cooperation between the U.S. space agency NASA and Chinese government entities, but this deal is purely commercial and therefore considered legal.

NASA spokesperson Kathryn Hambleton confirmed to Xinhua that there is a Chinese experiment that is launched on this mission, known as SpaceX CRS-11.

“NASA complied with all legal requirements to notify the Congress of this activity, and all of the ISS partners approved the inclusion of the experiment,” Hambleton said in an email.

“This is not the first Chinese experiment on the International Space Station (ISS),” the spokesperson said. “Chinese scientists have been investigators and co-investigators on international experiments conducted on the ISS, including for the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer investigation on ISS.”

Good step

However, Professor Deng Yulin, who led the Chinese research, said that this is the first time an ISS experiment has been independently designed and fabricated in China.

“This cooperation does not violate any laws and regulations, including the Wolf amendment. We do it in an open and visible way,” Deng told Xinhua. “This is a new model of cooperation that we can follow in the future.”

“We think it’s really an important research and they have done a great job,” Mary Murphy, senior internal payloads manager of NanoRacks, told Xinhua, calling the cooperation between the two “a good example.”

Leroy Chiao, a former Chinese-American NASA astronaut and ISS commander, highlighted the significance of the Chinese project.

“I think this is a good step forward,” Chiao said. “I have always believed that cooperation is the best way forward for both the U.S. and China, particularly using civil space exploration as an avenue.”

Joan Johnson-Freese, a space policy analyst at the U.S. Naval War College, said that it evidences the growing importance of commercial space.

“Space is no longer just the purview of government activity,” Johnson-Freese said. “Space is developing as an area of commercial activity, much like cars and computers, which is a big change from the past.”

SpaceX CRS-11 was the 11th of up to 20 missions to the space station that the California-based company will fly for NASA. It also marked the first time that SpaceX has launched a spaceship that has been used on a previous mission to the space station.