by bintangkecil on Wednesday, November 18th, 2009 | Knowledge, Life | No Comments

The Moon?

Yes, I see the moon every night.
“The Moon is Earth’s only natural satellite.”
“The Moon is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System.”
“The Moon’s diameter is a little more than a quarter of that of the Earth.”
…
but, did you know that …

1. Turtles were the first to orbit the moon

Sure, you knew about the roles of Armstrong and Aldrin. But the first thing you didn’t know about the moon is the role of the steppe tortoise.

In 1968, the Soviet Union launched the Zond 5 return probe, which became the first circumlunar probe to return safely to earth. It happened to be carrying a biological payload of turtles (steppe tortoises), wine flies, meal worms, seeds, and other life forms. When the Soviets retrieved it following splashdown in the Indian Ocean, they found the animals to be healthy (the turtles had lost 10% of their weight), giving them the distinction of being the first earthly life forms to orbit the moon.

Other firsts of the Soviet Lunar Program include Luna 2 (first probe to impact the Moon), Luna 3 (first flyby and image of the lunar farside), Luna 9 (first soft lunar landing), and Luna 10 (first lunar orbiter).

2. The lunar shadow moves faster than sound

During a solar eclipse, the moon casts a shadow on the Earth, the surface speed of which is relative to the observer’s position on Earth. Speed is slowest at the equator, where the shadow moves at 1,074 mph. Near the north pole, that speed can reach 5,000 mph. These speeds dwarf the speed of sound (768 mph). If shadows could actually make sounds, a solar eclipse would produce a sonic boom on earth.

The shadow’s surface speed would be significantly faster if the Earth’s rotation and the moon’s orbital motion weren’t heading in the same angular direction. As it is though, the shadow is fast enough, and it’s said to be awe-inspiring. Astronomer Mabel Loomis Todd described it like “a tangible darkness advancing almost like a wall, swift as imagination, silent as doom.”

3. The moon was formed by the “Big Whack”

Another thing you didn’t know about the moon is where the hell it came from. Don’t worry, you’re not alone: Scientists, astronomers and dreamers alike have been hypothesizing about the origins of the moon for centuries, but the current reigning theory is known colloquially as the “the Big Whack.” or the “giant impact hypothesis”.

Here’s how the Big Whack works:

Sometime about 4.53 billion years ago (about 30-50 million years after the rest of the Solar System formed), the Earth and another similarly-sized celestial body called Theia (or Orpheus) were involved in a fairly routine galactic hit-and-run. The impact vaporized some rocks on Earth, sending that cloud into orbit around our planet. Over time — over a long, long time — that cloud cooled down and condensed into a ring of small, solid rocks. The ring continued to condense until there was only one rock left — the moon.

(see diagram on the left)

4. “Blue moons” were born by an enormous Earthly cataclysm

We say “once in a blue moon” to refer to rare events, but a blue moon — the second of two full moons appearing in a single calendar month — isn’t all that rare, occurring once about every three years. The term itself has a much more exceptional and violent origin.

In the summer of 1883, a volcano called Krakatoa erupted on a 15-square-mile tropical island also called Krakatoa nestled between the Indonesian islands of Sumatra and Java. It was the fifth largest volcanic eruption known to have occurred in the last 75,000 years. In Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded, author Simon Winchester writes that the final cataclysmic eruption hurled six cubic miles of ash and debris 130,000 feet high. According to NASA, among a host of oddities created by that atmospheric dust was the blue appearance of the moon, a phenomenon that lasted for almost two years.

5. The moon undergoes frequent “earthquakes”

The last thing you didn’t know about the moon is that it has earthquakes.

Well not exactly ”earthquakes” (those can only occur on Earth), but moonquakes. The seminal Apollo XI lunar landing included more than just a flag, a plaque and a small step for a man; astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin had work to do. This included the Passive Seismic Experiment, which confirmed for NASA that the moon had a crust, a mantle and a core, and that moonquakes were frequent — just like at home.

Source: NASA

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by nate on Friday, November 13th, 2009 | Knowledge, News, World | No Comments

“We’re unlocking the mysteries of our nearest neighbour and by extension the solar system. It turns out the moon harbours many secrets, and Lcross has added a new layer to our understanding,” said Michael Wargo, chief lunar scientist at Nasa’s headquarters in Washington.

The new findings, detailed in the Sept. 25 issue of the journal Science, come in the wake of further evidence of lunar polar water ice by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and just weeks before the planned lunar impact of NASA’s LCROSS satellite, which will hit one of the permanently shadowed craters at the moon’s south pole in hope of churning up evidence of water ice deposits in the debris field.

The moon remains drier than any desert on Earth, but the water is said to exist on the moon in very small quantities. One ton of the top layer of the lunar surface would hold about 32 ounces of water, researchers said.

Nasa scientists yesterday announced that a probe that was deliberately crashed into the moon’s southern polar region last month discovered at least 25 gallons of water.

“Yes, we found water,” said Anthony Colaprete, a principal project investigator at Nasa’s Ames research centre in California. “We didn’t find just a little bit, we found a significant amount.”

read more

Tags: alternative living place, astronaut, earth, is there water on the moon, live on the moon, lunar, moon, NASA, water

by bintangkecil on Thursday, October 8th, 2009 | News, Tech/Gadget, World | No Comments

NASA is launching a dramatic mission to bomb the moon on October 9.

See a preview of the blast, then watch it LIVE from earth or on the web.

The LCROSS (Lunar CRater Observing and Sensing Satellite) mission will send a missile traveling at twice the speed of a bullet to blast a hole in the lunar surface near the moon’s South pole.

Scientists expect the impact of the Centaur rocket to be powerful enough to eject a huge plume of debris from the moon. The moon dust should even be large enough to be seen from earth through telescopes 10-to-12 inches and larger, says NASA.

So what’s our beef with the moon?

The bombing isn’t an act of hostility: it’s all part of our search for water in space.

The missile will impact the lunar surface at crater Cabeus A (see photo below). The crater is located on the moon’s South pole, an area in which scientists estimate there may be billions of tons of trapped ice.

The actual impact will occur early in the morning on October 9, and there are two ways to catch the rocket’s blast:

First, you can watch a live TV broadcast of the LCROSS mission on NASA TV, which is scheduled to start streaming at 6:15 am EDT/3:15 am PDT on October 9.

The first hour will include commentary and status reports. The actual impact should start at 7:30 am EDT/4:30 am PDT (11:30 UT), according to NASA:

The Centaur rocket will strike first, transforming 2200 kg of mass and 10 billion joules of kinetic energy into a blinding flash of heat and light. Researchers expect the impact to throw up a plume of debris as high as 10 km.

Close behind, the LCROSS mothership will photograph the collision for NASA TV and then fly right through the debris plume. Onboard spectrometers will analyze the sunlit plume for signs of water (H2O), water fragments (OH), salts, clays, hydrated minerals and assorted organic molecules.

NASA expects the blast to be so large that it can be seen from earth through telescopes 10-to-12 inches long (or larger). Any place west of the Mississippi River is a potential observing site, with Hawaii and Pacific coast states the best places to watch the impact.

Source: Huffington Post

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by nate on Saturday, August 8th, 2009 | Knowledge, Life, Travel, World | No Comments

Facts about Apollo 11 mission

The Apollo 11 mission statement: ‘Perform a manned lunar landing and return.’

Apollo 11 launched July 16 from Kennedy Space Center and returned to the Pacific Ocean on July 24, 1969.

A three-stage, 33-story Saturn V rocket put Apollo 11 into Earth’s orbit in 12 minutes.

The command module was named Columbia, the landing craft Eagle.

The computing power of the spacecraft was less than that of the average cell phone today.

The lunar lander ladder had nine steps. The bottom step was 3.5 feet above the moon’s surface.

The Apollo 11 astronauts walked on the moon for 2 hours and 31 minutes.

President Richard Nixon called the astronauts from an Oval Office telephone during the moonwalk.

The  were on the moon for 21 hours and 38 minutes.

The suits worn by the astronauts weighed 360 pounds on Earth, 60 pounds on the moon.

Apollo 11 left the first litter on the moon, a bag of empty food packages and some urine bags.

The base of the Eagle remains on the moon with a plaque that says: ‘Here men from the Planet Earth first set foot upon the moon. July 1969 A.D. We came in peace for all mankind.’

Four men walked on the moon before the end of the 1960s.

The Apollo program cost about $25 billion between 1962 and 1972 (about $147 billion today).

At its peak, the Apollo program employed roughly 400,000 people and was supported by about 20,000 companies and universities.

All the moon visits occurred between December 1968 and December 1972.

Tags: Apollo, astronauts, kennedy space center, moon, moonwalk, NASA, Nixon

by bintangkecil on Monday, May 11th, 2009 | News | No Comments

By John Raoux, AP

Atlantis lifted off at 2:01 p.m. EDT on a mission to upgrade the world’s most famous telescope.

After a smooth countdown and picture-perfect liftoff, space shuttle Atlantis and a crew of seven astronauts are in space, ready to begin their 11-day mission to service NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. Atlantis lifted off Launch Pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 2:01 p.m. EDT.

Atlantis and the STS-125 crew lifted off on a mission to upgrade the world’s most famous telescope.
(NASA.gov)

The six men and one woman will attempt the complicated tasks on a mission that was delayed last fall, two weeks before the scheduled launch, after the orbiting telescope broke down.

Two spacewalking teams will replace Hubble’s batteries and gyroscopes, install two new cameras and try to repair two broken science instruments not designed to be tinkered with in space.

Follow the countdown minute-by-minute as Atlantis is prepared and the astronauts suit up and ride to the pad. Updated first-hand from the Launch Control Center at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. (NASA.gov)

NASA is currently livestreaming the launch of the Space Shuttle Atlantis.
Watch LIVE: Atlantis Launch Coverage here!

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by nate on Wednesday, December 17th, 2008 | Knowledge, World | 8 Comments

Between 1.5 trillion and 2 trillion tons of ice in Greenland, Antarctica and Alaska has melted at an accelerating rate since 2003, according to NASA scientists, in the latest signs of what they say is global warming.

Using new satellite technology that measures changes in mass in mountain glaciers and ice sheets, NASA geophysicist Scott Luthcke concluded that the losses amounted to enough water to fill the Chesapeake Bay 21 times.

“The ice tells us in a very real way how the climate is changing,” said Luthcke, who will present his findings this week at the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco, California.

NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, or GRACE, mission uses two orbiting satellites to measure the “mass balance” of a glacier, or the net annual difference between ice accumulation and ice loss.

“A few degrees of change [in temperature] can increase the amount of mass loss, and that contributes to sea level rise and changes in ocean current,” Luthcke said

For detailed article from CNN, click here.

Tags: Alaska, Antarctica, global warming, GRACE, Greenland, Ice melting, NASA