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"Everything should be as simple as it is, but not simpler", Albert Einstein
Browsing All posts tagged under »Moon«
Bright explosion on the Moon
For the past 8 years, NASA astronomers have been monitoring the Moon for signs of explosions caused by meteoroids hitting the lunar surface. “Lunar meteor showers” have turned out to be more common than anyone expected, with hundreds of detectable impacts occurring every year. They’ve just seen the biggest explosion in the history of the […]
The Moon’s Permanently Shadowed Regions
March 8, 2013
As you watch the Moon over the course of a month, you’ll notice that different features are illuminated by the Sun at different times. However, there are some parts of the Moon that never see sunlight. These areas are called permanently shadowed regions, and they appear dark because unlike on the Earth, the axis of […]
Binocular disparity as an explanation for the moon illusion
January 17, 2013
Joseph Antonides, Toshiro Kubota We present another explanation for the moon illusion, in which the moon looks larger near the horizon than near the zenith. In our model, the sky is considered a spatially contiguous and geometrically smooth surface. When an object (like the moon) breaks the contiguity of the surface, humans perceive an occlusion […]
Parting Moon Shots from NASA’s GRAIL mission
January 11, 2013
Three days prior to its planned impact on a lunar mountain, mission controllers activated the camera aboard one of NASA’s GRAIL twins to take some final photos from lunar orbit
The moon’s phase and libration throughout the year 2013
November 20, 2012
This visualization shows the moon’s phase and libration throughout the year 2013, at hourly intervals. Each frame represents one hour. In addition, this visualization also shows other relevant information, including moon orbit position, subearth and subsolar points, distance from the Earth. Click each graphic to learn more about what it means! Finally, to learn more […]
Build a supercomputer on the moon
September 17, 2012
Hal Hodson NASA currently controls its deep space missions through a network of huge satellite dishes in California, Spain and Australia known as the Deep Space Network (DSN). Even the Voyager 1 probe relies on these channels to beam data back to Earth as it careers away into space. But traffic on the network is […]
LRO Spectrometer Detects Helium in Moon’s Atmosphere
August 16, 2012
Scientists using the Lyman Alpha Mapping Project (LAMP) spectrometer aboard NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) have made the first spectroscopic observations of the noble gas helium in the tenuous atmosphere surrounding the moon…. Read more: www.nasa.gov
New NASA photos reveal American flags…
July 30, 2012
…planted during moon landings proudly yet wave FOUR DECADES after last Apollo mission Four decades after the last astronauts landed on the moon and planted an American flag in lunar soil, scientists wondered: ‘Does that star spangled banner yet wave?’ Finally new images from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) have given proof in the […]
Partial lunar eclipse 4 June
June 3, 2012
The transit of Venus is not the only event taking place this month; a partial lunar eclipse takes place on 4 June (UT) and although it lacks the beauty of a copper-coloured moon at a total eclipse, there is still a very real fascination to be had from seeing a large chuck ‘bitten out’ of […]
Soviet Moon Lander Discovered Water on The Moon in 1976
May 30, 2012
The last Soviet mission to the moon, Luna-24, returned to Earth with water-rich rocks from beneath the lunar surface. But the West ignored the result The possibility of water on the moon has excited scientists and science fiction fans for decades. If we ever decide to maintain a human presence on the moon, clear evidence […]
Cosmic rays alter chemistry of lunar ice
March 19, 2012
Space scientists from the University of New Hampshire and multi-institutional colleagues report they have quantified levels of radiation on the moon’s surface from galactic cosmic ray (GCR) bombardment that over time causes chemical changes in water ice and can create complex carbon chains similar to those that help form the foundations of biological structures. In […]
NASA Spacecraft Reveals Recent Geological Activity on the Moon
February 20, 2012
New images from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft show the moon’s crust is being stretched, forming minute valleys in a few small areas on the lunar surface. Scientists propose this geologic activity occurred less than 50 million years ago, which is considered recent compared to the moon’s age of more than 4.5 billion years. […]
Space Base on the Far Side of the Moon….
February 10, 2012
… A Possibility A group of scientists at NASA is strongly considering the possibility of constructing what they refer to as a waypoint tended by humans on the far side of the Moon. This structure would serve as a relay and resupply base for space missions probing deeper within the solar system. Top NASA officials […]
LROC Explores Aristarchus Crater
January 3, 2012
http://youtu.be/yb10Cpx27w0 Space probe gets up close to lunar crater that is two miles deep and so huge it can be seen from Earth with the naked eye Orbiter flies past just 16.2 miles up Images of crater twice as deep as Grand Canyon Shows layers of minerals like strip mines on Earth Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk
Moon, Saturn and Spica
December 19, 2011
The Moon and two bright companions line up across the southeast before dawn tomorrow. The closer of the Moon’s companions is Spica, the leading light of the constellation Virgo. It’s to the left or lower left of the Moon. The other is the planet Saturn, which is to the left of Spica. Saturn is the […]
Santa and the moon
November 28, 2011
Peter Barthel Happy end-of-the-year evening and night events provide good opportunities to explain the phases of the moon. The need for such moon phase education is once again demonstrated, through an investigation of illustrations on Santa Claus and Christmas gift wrap and in children’s books, in two countries which have been important in shaping the […]
Mystery of the Lunar Ionosphere
November 15, 2011
Lunar researchers have been struggling with the mystery for years, and they may have finally found a solution. But first, what is an ionosphere? Every terrestrial planet with an atmosphere has one. High above the planet’s rocky surface where the atmosphere meets the vacuum of space, ultraviolet rays from the sun break apart atoms of […]
Aliens don’t need a moon like ours
November 13, 2011
by David Shiga TALK about being over the moon. It seems planets don’t need a big satellite like Earth’s in order to support life, increasing the number on which life could exist. In 1993, Jacques Laskar of the Paris Observatory in France and colleagues showed that the moon helps stabilise the tilt of Earth’s rotation axis against perturbations by […]
Moon’s shadow creates a wake
October 12, 2011
During a total solar eclipse the Moon comes directly between the Sun and the Earth, casting a dark shadow that moves across land and sea. Now, researchers in Taiwan and Japan have shown that this shadow creates a pocket of high-pressure air that cuts through the atmosphere much like a boat through water – leaving […]
Apollo 11 descends to the Google Moon
September 28, 2011
This is pretty neat: an Apollo enthusiast who goes by the handle GoneToPlaid has created a video comparing the Apollo 11 footage of its descent to the Moon with images from Google Moon: http://youtu.be/G9Nh5qWzqMY That’s very cool. You can see the same features in the Apollo 11 film footage and in the newer view from Google Moon, […]
How common are earth-moon planetary systems?
September 19, 2011
Sebastian Elser, Prof. Ben Moore and Dr. Joachim Stadel of the University of Zurich, Switzerland, in cooperation with Ryuji Morishima of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, tried to estimate how common Earth-Moon planetary systems are. They have found that 1 in 12 Earth-like planets probably hosts a Moon-like satellite. Since the Moon might have played an […]
20 Most Marvelous Moon Missions
September 6, 2011
Over the past 50 years mankind has sent almost 100 missions to the moon. Though not all of these were successful, they have cumulatively made our nearest celestial neighbor the most explored place in the solar system beyond our planet. Yet the moon is still holding out secrets……
NASA Spacecraft Images Offer Sharper Views Of Apollo Landing Sites
September 6, 2011
http://youtu.be/mDc7A50jY2o NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) captured the sharpest images ever taken from space of the Apollo 12, 14 and 17 landing sites. Images show the twists and turns of the paths made when the astronauts explored the lunar surface. At the Apollo 17 site, the tracks laid down by the lunar rover are clearly […]
Turning the Moon Blood Red
June 13, 2011
http://youtu.be/BJJRPFUQfls Read also: http://physicsforme.wordpress.com/2011/06/13/starwatch-lunar-eclipse/
Starwatch: Lunar eclipse
June 13, 2011
Wednesday’s total eclipse of the Moon may be the most striking for years but observers in Britain must be content with a view of only the closing act of the drama. The Moon stands over the southern Indian Ocean as it passes through the central dark umbra of the Earth’s shadow, plunging deeper into the […]
May 17, 2013
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