Much to the disappointment of space nerds everywhere, man has not stepped foot on the Moon in more than 40 years. Governments have sent expensive robots and satellites to our nearest celestial neighbor, but the Moon remains woefully under-explored.

That's why Google and the X Prize foundation teamed up to offer $30 million to the first private enterprise that can soft-land a robot on the surface of the Moon and have it traverse 500 meters of the lunar surface.

A number of teams are competing, but only one, the Part Time Scientists team from Germany, has the backing of automotive giant Audi — and a working prototype of the team's moon rover is debuting at Audi's booth at the Detroit Auto Show. I got an exclusive sneak peek and trust me: it's out of this world.

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