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Posts Tagged ‘moon’

NASA-Funded Scientists Detect Water on Moon’s Surface that Hints at Water Below

September 2, 2013 Leave a comment

This image of the moon was generated by data collected by NASA's Moon Mineralogy MapperThis image of the moon was generated by data collected by NASA’s Moon Mineralogy Mapper on the Indian Space Research Organization’s Chandrayaan-1 mission. It is a three-color composite of reflected near-infrared radiation from the sun, and illustrates the extent to which different materials are mapped across the side of the moon that faces Earth. Image credit: ISRO/NASA/JPL-Caltech/Brown Univ./USGS
› Full image and caption

 

August 28, 2013

PASADENA – NASA-funded lunar research has yielded evidence of water locked in mineral grains on the surface of the moon from an unknown source deep beneath the surface. Using data from NASA’s Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) instrument aboard the Indian Space Research Organization’s Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, scientists remotely detected magmatic water, or water that originates from deep within the moon’s interior, on the surface of the moon.

The findings, published Aug. 25 in Nature Geoscience, represent the first detection of this form of water from lunar orbit. Earlier studies had shown the existence of magmatic water in lunar samples returned during NASA’s Apollo program.

M3 imaged the lunar impact crater Bullialdus, which lies near the lunar equator. Scientists were interested in studying this area because they could better quantify the amount of water inside the rocks due to the crater’s location and the type of rocks it held. The central peak of the crater is made up of a type of rock that forms deep within the lunar crust and mantle when magma is trapped underground.

 

Read more: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-262

Is NASA about to unveil plans for manned moon mission?

November 9, 2012 Leave a comment

by Robert T. Gonzalez at http://io9.com/

Suit up, people — word is we’re heading back to the Moon.

According to space policy expert John Logsdon, there’s a decent chance NASA has already cleared plans to establish a manned base on the far side of the Moon with the Obama administration. Thing is, they’ve probably been keeping it under wraps in the event that Romney had won Tuesday’s election. Now that Obama has secured a second term, Logsdon says an accouncement from the Agency could be forthcoming.

“NASA has been evolving its thinking, and its latest charts have inserted a new element of cislunar/lunar gateway/Earth-moon L2 sort of stuff into the plan,” said Logsdon in an interview with SPACE.com’s Mike Wall.

“They’ve been holding off announcing that until after the election,” Logsdon added, noting that NASA’s mission, direction, and budget could have been revised under a Romney administration.

An announcement would certainly gel with the Obama administration’s ambitious agenda for space. In 2010, the President signed the NASA 2010 Authorization Act into law, freeing up close to $60 billion in NASA spending through 2013. This funding would serve as one of the first sparks in a plan to ignite a resurgence in space exploration, including an asteroid visit by 2025 and and a trip to Mars by the 2030s. A manned outpost at the Earth-moon L2 “gateway” — shown in the diagram below — could serve as an important stepping stone in our path out into the solar system.

Is NASA about to unveil plans for manned moon mission?

Read more: http://io9.com/5958867/is-nasa-about-to-unveil-plans-for-manned-moon-mission#13524574961213&{“type”:”iframeUpdated”,”height”:1984}

 

 

Hubble Discovers a Fifth Moon Orbiting Pluto


ScienceDaily (July 11, 2012) — A team of astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope is reporting the discovery of another moon orbiting the icy dwarf planet Pluto.

This image, taken by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, shows five moons orbiting the distant, icy dwarf planet Pluto. The green circle marks the newly discovered moon, designated P5, as photographed by Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 on July 7. The observations will help scientists in their planning for the July 2015 flyby of Pluto by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft. P4 was uncovered in Hubble imagery in 2011. (Credit: NASA; ESA; M. Showalter, SETI Institute)
 

The moon is estimated to be irregular in shape and 6 to 15 miles across. It is in a 58,000-mile-diameter circular orbit around Pluto that is assumed to be co-planar with the other satellites in the system.

“The moons form a series of neatly nested orbits, a bit like Russian dolls,” said team lead Mark Showalter of the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif.

The discovery increases the number of known moons orbiting Pluto to five.

The Pluto team is intrigued that such a small planet can have such a complex collection of satellites. The new discovery provides additional clues for unraveling how the Pluto system formed and evolved. The favored theory is that all the moons are relics of a collision between Pluto and another large Kuiper belt object billions of years ago.

Read more : http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/07/120711123038.htm

Researchers Estimate Ice Content of Crater at Moon’s South Pole


ScienceDaily (June 20, 2012) — NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft has returned data that indicate ice may make up as much as 22 percent of the surface material in a crater located on the moon’s south pole.

Elevation (left) and shaded relief (right) image of Shackleton, a 21-km-diameter (12.5-mile-diameter) permanently shadowed crater adjacent to the lunar south pole. The structure of the crater’s interior was revealed by a digital elevation model constructed from over 5 million elevation measurements from the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter. (Credit: NASA/Zuber, M.T. et al., Nature, 2012)
 

The team of NASA and university scientists using laser light from LRO’s laser altimeter examined the floor of Shackleton crater. They found the crater’s floor is brighter than those of other nearby craters, which is consistent with the presence of small amounts of ice. This information will help researchers understand crater formation and study other uncharted areas of the moon. The findings are published in Thursday’s edition of the journal Nature.

“The brightness measurements have been puzzling us since two summers ago,” said Gregory Neumann of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., a co-author on the paper. “While the distribution of brightness was not exactly what we had expected, practically every measurement related to ice and other volatile compounds on the moon is surprising, given the cosmically cold temperatures inside its polar craters.”

Read more : http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120620141159.htm

 

ESPL: Dances of the Planets

June 19, 2012 2 comments

June 19, 2012

The planets in the heavens move in exquisite orbital patterns, dancing to the Music of the Cosmos.  There is more mathematical and geometric harmony than we realize.   The idea for this article is from a book Larry Pesavento shared with me.  The book, ‘A Little Book of Coincidence‘ by John Martineau, illustrates the orbital patterns and several of their geometrical relationships.  .

Take the orbits of any two planets and draw a line between the two planet positions every few days.  Because the inner planet orbits faster than the outer planet, interesting patterns evolve.  Each planetary pairing has its own unique dance rhythm.  For example, the Earth-Venus dance returns to the original starting position after eight Earth years.  Eight Earth years equals thirteen Venus years.  Note that 8 and 13 are members of the Fibonacci number series.

  • Earth:     8 years * 365.256 days/year  =  2,922.05 days                   
  • Venus:  13 years * 224.701 days/year  =  2,921.11 days (ie. 99.9%)

Watching the Earth-Venus dance for eight years creates this beautiful five-petal flower with the Sun at the center.  (5 is another Fibonacci number.)

Another intriguing fact is the ratio between the Earth’s outer orbit and Venus’s inner orbit is given by a square.

In the following dance patterns, the planet pairing is given and the number of orbits of the outer planet.  Enjoy these beautiful patterns.

Let me share with you other facts about cosmic harmony.  The radius of the Moon compared to the Earth is three to eleven, ie. 3:11.

  • Radius of Moon = 1,080 miles =  3 x 360
  • Radius of Earth  = 3,960 miles = 11 x 360 = 33 x 1 x 2 x 3 x 4 x 5
  • Radius of Earth plus Radius of Moon = 5,040 miles = 1 x 2 x 3 x 4 x 5 x 6 x 7 = 7 x 8 x 9 x 10

The ratio 3:11 is 27.3 percent, and the orbit of the Moon takes 27.3 days.  27.3 days is also the average rotation period of a sunspot.  The closest : farthest distance ratio that Venus and Mars each experiences in the Mars-Venus dance is incredibly 3:11.  The Earth orbits between them.

The sizes of the Moon and the Earth ‘Square the Circle’ as shown in this illustration, which is drawn to scale.  The perimeters of the dotted square and the dotted circle are the same length.

The perimeter of the dotted red square is 4 x Earth’s diameter = 4 x 7,920 miles = 31,680 miles.  
The circumference of the dotted blue circle is 2 pi x radius = 2 x 3.142 x 5040 miles = 31,667 miles.  (ie. 99.9%)

Article by Howard Arrington

Neil Armstrong narrates his own moon landing, looks forward to getting his camera back


 
  • Armstrong wraps up four-part interview 
  • Discusses moon conspiracy theories 
  • Narrates Google Moon version of landing 
Neil Armstrong

Armstrong says he hopes man goes back to the moon. He left his camera there. Picture: CPA Australia/evoTV Source: news.com.au

 

YOU’RE in the lunar module Eagle and the moon is less than 1000m below you.

Problem – you’ve got to cover that last kilometre and find a safe landing spot before your

fuel  runs out in oh, about three minutes.

It’s all a bit lumpy down there. Lucky you’ve got a gun pilot in one Neil A. Armstrong by

your side.

Well, not really. It’s just archive footage through the window of Apollo 11’s famous

lander as it makes it descent to the moon back in 1969.

But Neil Armstrong’s commentary is real.

He sat down with CPA Australia CEO Alex Malley to talk through those final

knuckle-whitening minutes when he realised Eagle’s auto-pilot was trying to set

 them amongst a minefield of slopes and boulders.

“Those slopes are steep, the rocks are very large – the size of automobiles,” he tells

Mr Malley in the rare “live” commentary.

“It’s certainly not a place where I want to land, so I took over manually from the

computer, the auto-pilot. Like a helicopter, on out to the west, to try to find a

smoother, more level landing spot.”

Neil Armstrong

Neil Armstrong

An Apollo fan recreated Eagle’s approch to the moon using Google Moon imagery. Picture: GoneToPlaid
Source: news.com.au

 

Commander Armstrong spots a smooth spot other side of crater.

“I’m running low on fuel. I’ve got less than two minutes of fuel,” he tells Mr Malley.

The actual footage shows Eagle’s rocket engine starting to kick up moon dust.

A 30-second fuel warning pings.

“I need to get it down here on the ground pretty soon, before we run out,” Cmdr Armstrong says.

Then a light thump, followed by the immortal words: “Tranquility to base here.

The Eagle has landed.”

Watch Neil Armstrong’s call of the moon landing at The Bottom Line

The first man to step foot on the moon is just as famous for his reluctance to talk

 about his experience, having given the barest handful of television interviews since

 that landmark day in 1969.

Even at the age of 82, he’s not comfortable in the public spotlight. Last year, his nerves

 were painfully obvious as he presented an Apollo enthusiast’s recreation of the moon landing

using Google Moon images to a US House Committee on Space, Science and Technology.

 

 

It’s broken into four parts, which you can watch here.

Read more: http://www.news.com.au/technology/sci-tech/neil-armstrong-narrates-his-own-moon-landing-looks-forward-to-getting-his-camera-back/story-fn5fsgyc-1226363100121#ixzz1vrURKYze

Engineer Details Plans to Build a Real, Burj-Dubai-Sized Starship Enterprise in 20 Years


By Rebecca Boyle Posted 05.14.2012

 

Real Starship Enterprise BuildTheEnterprise.org
 

The year 2245 is just too distant — we should build and commission a real USS Enterprise right now, cracking the champagne across her hull within 20 years, according to an enterprising engineer. The gigantic ship would use ion propulsion, powered by a 1.5-GW nuclear reactor, and could reach Mars in three months and the moon in three days. Its 0.3-mile-diameter, magnetically suspended gravity wheel spinning at 2 RPM would provide 1G of gravity, and the thing looks just like the “Star Trek” ship of lore.

This project is the brainchild of an engineer who calls himself BTE Dan. As in “Build The Enterprise,” which is also the name of his brand-new website.

“We have the technological reach to build the first generation of the spaceship known as the USS Enterprise – so let’s do it,” BTE Dan writes. He even sifts through the federal budget and proposes tax hikes and spend ing cuts to cover the $1 trillion cost.

Though the “Star Trek” connection lends the project an air of sci-fi fun, BTE Dan is hardly the only engineer dreaming up a next-generation spaceship to the stars. DARPA’s 100-Year Starship project is designed partly to foster ideas just like this one, from a project planning roadmap to a real ship.

Read more: http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2012-05/build-real-starship-enterprise-make-it-so-ambitious-engineer-says

http://www.buildtheenterprise.org/

Russian Space Chief: ‘We’re Talking About Establishing Permanent Bases’ On the Moon

May 24, 2012 3 comments

By Clay Dillow Posted 05.23.2012 at 1:07 pm

Yesterday, the heads of the space agencies for Europe, Canada, Russia, India, and Japan met in Washington D.C. (without NASA, which had all hands on deck for the SpaceX launch in Florida). The most interesting topic of conversation? The moon, which seems to be the destination on everyone’s agenda except for NASA. And for Russia, it’s less a destination and more a frontier for colonization.

The Biggest Supermoon in Years is Coming Tonight


Saturday, 05 May 2012 11:28

‘This Saturday evening, take a look at the night sky and you might see something special. The moon will make its largest, most stunning appearance of the year—an event known to scientists as “the perigee-syzygy of the Earth-Moon-Sun system” and to the popular skywatching public simply as the “supermoon.” As one of the most spectacular supermoons in years, the moon will appear 14 percent bigger and 30 percent brighter than when it is on the far side of its orbit.

Why does the moon sometimes appear larger, and sometimes smaller? The answer lies in the fact that its orbit around Earth is elliptical, so its distance from us varies—it ranges from roughly 222,000 to 252,000 miles away each month. On Saturday, the moon will reach what is known as the perigee, coming as close as it ever does to the Earth, just 221,802 miles away. At the same time, it will be a full moon, with the entirety of its Earth-facing surface illuminated by the light of the sun.’

Read more: The Biggest Supermoon in Years is Coming Tonight

http://www.davidicke.com/headlines/

NASA’s Cassini Finds Saturn’s Moon Phoebe Has Planet-Like Qualities


April 27, 2012 12:58 PM EDT

Phoebe

Saturn’s moon Phoebe(Photo: NASA)

Data from NASA‘s Cassini mission reveal Saturn’s moon Phoebe has more planet-like qualities than previously thought.

Scientists had their first close-up look at Phoebe when Cassini began exploring the Saturn system in 2004. Using data from multiple spacecraft instruments and a computer model of the moon’s chemistry, geophysics and geology, scientists found Phoebe was a so-called planetesimal, or remnant planetary building block. The findings appear in the April issue of the Journal Icarus.

“Unlike primitive bodies such as comets, Phoebe appears to have actively evolved for a time before it stalled out,” said Julie Castillo-Rogez, a planetary scientist at NASA‘s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. “Objects like Phoebe are thought to have condensed very quickly. Hence, they represent building blocks of planets. They give scientists clues about what conditions were like around the time of the birth of giant planets and their moons”

Read more: http://www.scienceworldreport.com/articles/2993/20120427/nasas-cassini-finds-saturns-moon-phoebe-planet.htm