Moon on Earth: August 23: 2017: Pila: Poland |

Habitat Lunares Crew:
Released 23:08:2017: 09:38. Image:
Monica Alcazar-Duarte
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||August 23: 2017 || ά.
This crew of six is midway through a simulated
expedition on the Moon, based at the new Habitat Lunares base in Poland. The
only facility of its kind in Europe, this privately run habitat is a simulated
lunar base set up in a former military airport in Pila in northwest Poland. The
crew stays on the base for two weeks at a time, physically cut off from the
external world. Lunares has no windows, is run on lunar time and its occupants
can leave only by venturing into an adjoining hanger, which is filled with
Moon-like basalt rocks for simulated Moonwalks.
This Lunar Expedition One is the second of four expeditions this year, lasting
August 15-29. The mission is controlled from ESA’s technical centre in Noordwijk,
the Netherlands, focusing on exploring changes to the crew’s biological clocks
during their stay. It performs scheduling, communicates with the base and
oversees lighting inside the habitat. “The analogue astronauts are completely
cut off from external light sources. Instead, we control the base’s automated
lighting systems.” explains Ms Agata Kolodziejczyk, Research Fellow in ESA’s
Advanced Concepts Team, who led the establishment of the habitat as part of her
research into ‘time architecture’ for future off-planet bases.
“I regard Lunares as an extremely valuable new chronobiological laboratory for
Europe, with full bioethical committee agreements in place. We’ll be checking
how the participants’ subjective time perception alters with the changes we
induce. The habitat contains an LED light system providing a shifting
combination of colours throughout the day, to mimic changes in sunlight. We’re
extending the length of this artificial ‘day’ to put their circadian rhythms out
of alignment and induce jet lag.
But we’re, also, testing new prototypes of ‘physiological lights’, that emit in
the ultraviolet, which penetrates through the retina to the brain’s pineal
gland, to see if this is sufficient to reset their body clocks.”
A survey of US Space Shuttle crews found that half depended on medication to go
to sleep in orbit, while other space-dwellers have reported disrupted body
clocks, a condition, that has been linked to various health problems. Redesigned
lighting systems, that fit better with human physiology should result in
happier, healthier astronauts, lighting aboard the International Space Station
has recently been updated for this very reason.
In parallel, more than 20 other experiments are, also, under way. ESA and the
International Lunar Exploration Working Group supplied the ExoGeoLab lander, as
well as, a telescope for use during simulated Moonwalks.
Polish ESA Young Graduate Trainee Mr Mateusz Kraiński has, also, built a rover
and simulator system in his free time. This Netherlands-based rover is being
controlled remotely by the crew from Poland.
Seen top row left to right: Vice-Commander Mr Mariusz Słonina, Communication
Officer Ms Dorota Budzyń, Astrobiologist Ms Joanna Kuźma. Bottom row left to
right: Medical Officer Mr Matt Harasymczuk, Biomedical Engineer Mr Grzegorz
Ambroszkiewicz and Commander Mr Piotrek Konorski.
ω.
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Back to the Moon

For ESA's three-D-printed lunar base concept, Foster+Partners
devised a weight-bearing ‘catenary’ dome design with a cellular structured wall
to shield against micrometeoroids and space radiation, incorporating a
pressurised inflatable to shelter astronauts. Image:
ESA: Foster + Partners
|| June 15: 2017 || ά.
The last manned mission to the Moon took
place in December 1972. Although several probes have targeted the Moon since
then, we humans have concentrated on living and working in low Earth orbit and
on exploring the rest of the Solar System with some ambitious robotic missions.
Today, the general view shared by Earth's space agencies is changing. The
exploration of outer space is still high on everybody's list but it has become
apparent that many future space activities will require a human presence on the
Moon first.
So far, no humans have ever been to the polar regions of the Moon, where
unmanned missions have found water in the form of ice. Water is an important
resource because it can be used to produce oxygen, which will be vital for human
survival on the Moon. But what does this all mean? If we are going to return to
the Moon, astronauts will need somewhere to live, in a safe and stable
environment. A new study launched under ESA’s General Studies Programme:GSP,
called, ‘Conceiving a lunar base using three-D printing technologies’, is set to
find out ways of creating habitable structures using all resources available at
the destination.
The study is looking into additive manufacturing or three-D printing technology
from a wider perspective, including the ancillary equipment needed to operate
this and the high-level requirements to ultimately achieve a lunar habitat.
Several studies have been carried out by different space agencies to see how
humans could survive on the Moon. In this respect, additive manufacturing or
three-D printing has been identified as one of the most promising applications
for building structures on the Moon.
Lunar soil as a base material for a three-D printer has already been used to
fabricate honeycomb-like bricks from which all kinds of useful structures can be
made. An even faster way of producing a lunar habitat would make use of an
inflatable base that can be covered layer-by-layer with lunar soil or ‘regolith’
to create a protective shell.
However, these studies have focused on conceptual designs, often based on single
elements, rather than taking into account the overall needs in terms of energy,
collection and transportation of the regolith, machinery and so on.
This new GSP study is to analyse the possibilities of using additive
manufacturing for the realisation of a lunar base, including the production of
internal equipment for the crew, the processing of food based on a limited
number of basic elements and the possibility of making spare parts needed to
maintain such base. It will address technologies, that could be used in a lunar
environment and investigate the developmental needs of three-D printing to
ensure a sustainable, safe place for astronauts on the Moon. ω.
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Look Out for the Asteroid to Fly by Mother Earth: April 19

Image: NASA Video-Capture
|| April 09: 2017 || ά. A relatively large near-Earth asteroid discovered nearly
three years ago will fly safely past Earth on April 19 at a distance of about
01.1 million miles or 01.8 million kilometres or about 04.6 times the distance
from Earth to the moon. Although, there is no possibility for the asteroid to
collide with our planet, this will be a very close approach for an asteroid of
this size. The asteroid, known as 2014JO25, was discovered in May 2014 by
astronomers at the Catalina Sky Survey near Tucson, Arizona, a project of NASA's
NEO Observations Programme in collaboration with the University of Arizona.
An NEO is a near-Earth object. Contemporary measurements by
NASA's NEOWISE mission indicate that the asteroid is roughly 2,000 feet, 650
metres in size and that its surface is about twice as reflective as that of the
moon. At this time very little else is known about the object’s physical
properties, even though, its trajectory is well known. The asteroid will
approach the Earth from the direction of the sun and will become visible in the
night sky after April 19. It is predicted to brighten to about magnitude 11,
when it could be visible in small optical telescopes for one or two nights
before it fades as the distance from the Earth rapidly increases.
Small asteroids pass within this distance of the Earth several times each week
but this upcoming close approach is the closest by any known asteroid of this
size or larger, since asteroid Toutatis, a 03.1-mile, five-kilometre asteroid,
which approached within about four lunar distances in September 2004. The next
known encounter of an asteroid of comparable size will occur in 2027 when the
half-mile-wide, 800-metre-wide asteroid 1999 AN10 will fly by at one lunar
distance, about 236,000 miles, 380,000 kilometres.
The April 19 encounter provides an outstanding opportunity to study this
asteroid, and astronomers plan to observe it with telescopes around the world to
learn as much about it as possible. Radar observations are planned at NASA's
Goldstone Solar System Radar in California and the National Science Foundation’s
Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, and the resulting radar images could reveal
surface details as small as a few meters.
The encounter on April 19 is the closest this asteroid has come to Earth for at
least the last 400 years and will be its closest approach for at least the next
500 years. Further, on April 19, the comet PanSTARRS:C:2015ER61 will make its
closest approach to the Earth, at a very safe distance of 109 million miles, 175
million kilometres. A faint fuzzball in the sky when it was discovered in 2015
by the Pan-STARRS NEO survey team using a telescope on the summit of Haleakala,
Hawaii, the comet has brightened considerably due to a recent outburst and is
now visible in the dawn sky with binoculars or a small telescope.
DC Agle: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif: 818-393-9011: agle at
jpl.nasa.gov
: Editor: Tony Greicius: NASA:
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To Survive the Long Dark
Lunar Night: Will You Sing to the Earth

A high-definition
image of Earth taken by Japan’s Kaguya lunar
orbiter in November 2007.Image: JAXA: NHK
|| March 24: 2017 || ά. Designers
of the future Moon missions and bases have to
contend with a chilling challenge: how might
their creations endure the fortnight-long lunar
night? ESA has arrived at a low-cost way of
surviving. During prolonged night, when the
surface is lit only by blue Earthlight,
temperatures dip below –170ºC. Some locations at
higher latitudes have shorter nights, though
others have much longer or even permanent
darkness.
Numerous robotic missions have perished during
this prolonged cold. Russia’s Lunokhod-tworover,
for instance, failed to make it through the
night in May 1973, its radioactive heater having
gradually run down after four months of
exploring. The Apollo manned missions stayed on
the surface only a few days at a time and all
during the early lunar morning. But future lunar
settlers will have to live in the night as well
as the day, bearing in mind that vital solar
energy and heat would be unavailable during the
14 days of darkness.
“Up until now,
radioactive heat and power sources have been the
preferred solution for lunar habitats.” explains
ESA’s Moritz Fontaine. “But these would multiply
the cost and complexity of any expedition. So
we’re exploring a more sustainable solution,
using the capacity of moondust to absorb and
store energy when hit by sunlight, then
releasing this energy during the lunar night.”
Driven by the temperature difference, this heat
engine would be kept running directly by the
heat of the Sun during the day, illuminated
surface temperatures rise well above 100ºC at
the equator while simultaneously storing excess
heat in the soil.
Once night falls, the heat engine would be kept
running in turn by the gradual release of the
energy from the heated soil. “The principle has
been worked out in detail.” adds Moritz. “The
next step, being undertaken through ESA’s
General Studies Programme, is to perform
numerical and simulation studies to put values
on the heat storage and electricity provision
the system would enable.
“The results should then allow the construction
of a small demonstrator to test the concept in
practice.”
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to Seek and Demand the End of Death Penalty For It is Your Business What is Done
in Your Name. The Law That Makes Humans Take Part in Taking Human Lives and That
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Cogito Ergo Sum: Descartes:
The First Lunar Meditation

Temple atop Shackleton
Crater: Image: Jorge Mañes Rubio. Spatial design
and visualisation in collaboration with DITISHOE
|| January 26: 2017 || ά.
A near-perpetually sunlit peak close to
the Moon’s south pole has been selected by ESA’s
artist-in-residence as the site of a building
like no other. Artist Jorge Mañes Rubio, part of
ESA’s future-oriented Advanced Concepts Team:ACT,
has designed a place of contemplation to serve a
future lunar settlement. It would be built on
the sunlit rim of Shackleton Crater, which is
bathed much of the time in sunlight while
overlooking a 04.2 km-deep interior mired in
perpetual shadow.
The lunar poles have previously been identified
as promising locations for future settlement
because craters kept shaded by the lowness of
the Sun in the local sky are thought to serve as
‘cold traps’ to preserve water ice, potentially
a vital source of water, air or rocket fuel. The
first building has yet to be erected on the
Moon, and most designs for lunar buildings have
been strictly functional in purpose: places to
live, work or perform research.
“I’ve been having all sorts of discussions with
my ACT colleagues, including speculating on the
likely needs of future lunar settlers.” explains
Jorge. “What kind of social interactions will
they share, what cultural activities and rituals
will they have, and what sort of art and
artefacts will they be producing? Humans have
been creating art for at least 30,000 years, so
I have no doubt this will continue in space and
on the Moon.
These discussions have been very valuable and
stimulating, since they lead us to consider
aspects of human exploration that aren’t usually
considered by scientists and engineers.” adds
Leopold Summerer, heading the ACT. “To benefit
fully from Jorge’s creativity, it was important
to give him full artistic freedom on what and
how he would do.”
What Jorge terms his ‘Moon Temple’ is intended
as a symbol of unity for humankind, reflecting
the pull that our natural satellite has always
had on the human imagination. “Lunar settlement
represents a perfect chance for a fresh start, a
place where there are no social conventions, no
nations and no religion, somewhere where these
concepts will need to be rethought from scratch.
Humans have brought flags to the Moon, but
they’ve been bleached white by sunlight since
then, almost as if the Moon is protecting itself
from such terrestrial concepts. So this Temple
is intended as a mythic and universal structure
that can hopefully bring people together in this
new environment in novel ways.”
At the same time, the 50 m-high domed structure
is also something that could one day be built.
Jorge talked to ESA materials specialists
studying 3D printing of lunar soil. “The result
might resemble ‘abode’ architecture, an ancient
method of building that is still made use to
this day.” adds Jorge.
“This was a big source of inspiration for me,
along with 18th century utopian architects such
as Étienne-Louis de Boullée and Claude Nicolas
Ledoux, who designed massive structures too
large to be feasibly built on Earth but
practical in the Moon’s one-sixth gravity.”
Similarly, the Temple’s free-standing dome would
eventually collapse under its own weight on
Earth, but could endure on the Moon. Jorge put
similar thought into the site of his building:
he selected Shackleton over nearby Malapert
Crater because Earth is perpetually visible from
Malapert, while from Shackleton it will only be
seen for two weeks at a time, inspiring more
independent thinking.
One opening in the dome will look Earthwards,
while another at the top will peer out into deep
space. As a next step, Jorge aims to create
small sculptures and artefacts out of simulated
lunar materials, inspired by the simulated lunar
environment at ESA’s European Astronaut Centre
near Cologne, Germany.
ω.
Whatever Your Field of
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to Seek and Demand the End of Death Penalty For It is Your Business What is Done
in Your Name. The Law That Makes Humans Take Part in Taking Human Lives and That
Permits and Kills Human Lives is No Law. It is the Rule of the Jungle Where Law
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The December Moon with
Some Green Neighbour

|| December 18: 2016|| ά.
This is the best ever we have seen the moon from
an earthling's perspective and definitely, the
best ever image of the moon that we have ever
taken. That was on December 11. The only issue
is, with this clarity of the image, that green
neighbour, is somewhat of a mystery! No idea who
that celestial neighbour is or whether that's
just a camera-blur.
What can be visible is the
most beautiful almost milky emerald glow-ring
around the moon. Just, don't run away with the
ring nor with the spoon, even if the cow wants
to jump! But, you are welcome to remain on
Mother Earth and have a look at what the
researchers have found out about the water cycle
and how that impacts of the rain and the dry,
over there, in
The Earth. ω.
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Hadley Rille on the Moon,
Seen by SMART-01

Hadley Rille on the Moon, seen by
SMART-01: Released 25.07.2016 11:29: Image:
ESA:Space-X:Space Exploration Institute
|| August 21: 2016|| ά. This strangely
meandering channel, carved on the Moon, is one
of the most famous features on our nearest
celestial neighbour. It shot to fame in July
1971 when the two astronauts of Apollo 15 drove
their lunar rover to its very edge.
Known as Hadley Rille, the feature is named
after the 18th century British mathematician and
inventor John Hadley. In 1721, Hadley presented
a telescope that used a non-spherical mirror to
the Royal Society in London. Shaped as a
parabola, the mirror avoided the aberration
caused by a spherical mirror, and set the shape
for all telescope mirrors to come.
Hadley Rille is thought to have been carved by
an ancient lava flow, dating back just over 03
billion years to soon after the Moon formed. It
stretches more than 120 km, up to 1500 m wide
and more than 300 m deep in some places.
From their close-up position, the Apollo
astronauts photographed what looked like strata
in the walls of the rille. This suggests that
there were many volcanic eruptions, each
building a new layer. Then, a channel of lava
cut through these deposits. When it drained
away, it left the sinuous rille we see today.
However, planetary scientists are not entirely
sure of the details of the process.
This image was taken by ESA’s SMART-01, which
explored the Moon from 2004 to 2006. Its
miniaturised camera demonstrated that smaller
equipment could still provide first-class
science.
This image was taken from an altitude of about
2000 km. It spans about 100 km and shows the
region around Hadley Rille centred at about 25°N
/ 3°E.
SMART-01 was ESA’s first mission to the Moon. It
tested new engine technologies, including a
solar electric propulsion system that will carry
ESA’s BepiColombo mission to Mercury in 2018.
At the end of its mission, SMART-01 was flown
closer and closer to the lunar surface until it
was intentionally crashed on September 03, 2006.
During its mission, it had completed more than
2000 orbits of the Moon. ω.
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Clair de Lune

Image: NASA
|| May 08: 2016 ||
The regular daily and monthly rhythms of Earth's
only natural satellite, the moon, have guided
timekeepers for thousands of years. Its
influence on Earth's cycles, notably tides, has
been charted by many cultures in many ages. The
moon moderates Earth's wobble on its axis,
leading to a relatively stable climate over
billions of years. From Earth, we always see the
same face of the moon because the moon is
spinning on its axis at the same speed that it
is going around Earth, that is, it is in
synchronous rotation with Earth.
The light areas of the moon
are known as the highlands. The dark features,
called maria (Latin for seas), are impact basins
that were filled with lava between 4.2 and 1.2
billion years ago. These light and dark areas
represent rocks of different composition and
ages, which provide evidence for how the early
crust may have crystallized from a lunar magma
ocean. The craters themselves, which have been
preserved for billions of years, provide an
impact history for the moon and other bodies in
the inner solar system.

NASA/Zuber, M.T. et al.,
Nature, 2012
The leading theory of the moon's origin is that
a Mars-sized body collided with Earth
approximately 4.5 billion years ago, and the
resulting debris from both Earth and the
impactor accumulated to form our natural
satellite. The newly formed moon was in a molten
state. Within about 100 million years, most of
the global "magma ocean" had crystallized, with
less-dense rocks floating upward and eventually
forming the lunar crust. The early moon may have
developed an internal dynamo, the mechanism for
global magnetic fields for terrestrial planets.
Since the ancient time of volcanism, the arid,
lifeless moon has remained nearly unchanged.
With too sparse an atmosphere to impede impacts,
a steady rain of asteroids, meteoroids, and
comets strikes the surface. Over billions of
years, the surface has been ground up into
fragments ranging from huge boulders to powder.
Nearly the entire moon is covered by a rubble
pile of charcoal-gray, powdery dust and rocky
debris called the lunar regolith. Beneath is a
region of fractured bedrock referred to as the
megaregolith.
The moon was first visited by the U.S.S.R.'s
Luna 1 and Luna 2 in 1959, and a number of U.S.
and U.S.S.R. robotic spacecraft followed. The
U.S. sent three classes of robotic missions to
prepare the way for human exploration: the
Rangers (1961-1965) were impact probes, the
Lunar Orbiters (1966-1967) mapped the surface to
find landing sites, and the Surveyors
(1966-1968) were soft landers. The first human
landing on the moon was on 20 July 1969. During
the Apollo missions of 1969-1972, 12 American
astronauts walked on the moon and used a Lunar
Roving Vehicle to travel on the surface and
extend their studies of soil mechanics,
meteoroids, lunar ranging, magnetic fields, and
solar wind. The Apollo astronauts brought back
382 kilograms (842 pounds) of rock and soil to
Earth for study.
After a long hiatus, lunar exploration resumed
in the 1990s with the U.S. robotic missions
Clementine and Lunar Propspector. Results from
both missions suggested that water ice might be
present at the lunar poles, but a controlled
impact of the Prospector spacecraft produced no
observable water.
The European Space Agency was first in the new
millennium with SMART-1 in 2003, followed by
Kaguya (Japan), Chang'e-1 (China), and
Chandrayaan-1 (India) in 2007-2008. The U.S.
began a new series of robotic lunar missions
with the joint launch of the Lunar
Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and Lunar Crater
Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) in
2009. In 2011, a pair of repurposed spacecraft
began the ARTEMIS (Acceleration, Reconnection,
Turbulence, and Electrodynamics of the moon's
Interaction with the Sun) mission. In 2012, the
Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL)
twin spacecraft studied the moon's gravity field
and produced the highest-resolution gravity
field map of any celestial body.

Apollo 17: Source:
Scientist-astronaut Harrison H. Schmitt is
photographed standing next to a huge, split
boulder during the third Apollo 17
extravehicular activity (EVA) at the Taurus-Littrow
landing site on the moon. Schmitt is the Apollo
17 lunar module pilot. This picture was taken by
astronaut Eugene A. Cernan, commander. While
Cernan and Schmitt descended in the Lunar Module
(LM) "Challenger" to explore the moon, astronaut
Ronald E. Evans, command module pilot, remained
with the Apollo 17 Command and Service Modules (CSM)
in lunar orbit. NASA:
Published: 12
June 2012
How the Moon Got its Name
Earth's only natural
satellite is simply called the moon because
people didn't know other moons existed until
Galileo Galilei discovered four moons orbiting
Jupiter in 1610. Other moons in our solar system
are given names so they won't be confused with
each other. We call them moons because, like our
own, they are natural satellites orbiting a
solar system body (which in turn is orbiting a
star).
Significant Dates

This map shows the gravity
field of the moon as measured by NASA's GRAIL
mission. The viewing perspective, known as a
Mercator projection, shows the far side of the
moon in the center and the nearside (as viewed
from Earth) at either side. Units are
milliGalileos where 1 Galileo is 1 centimeter
per second squared. Reds correspond to mass
excesses which create areas of higher local
gravity, and blues correspond to mass deficits
which create areas of lower local gravity.
Image: NASA/ARC/MIT:
Published: December 05,
2012
1610: Galileo Galilei is the
first to use a telescope to make scientific
observations of the moon.
1959-1976: The U.S.S.R.'s
Luna program of 17 robotic missions achieves
many "firsts" and three sample returns.
1961-1968: The U.S. Ranger,
Lunar Orbiter, and Surveyor robotic missions
pave the way for Apollo human lunar landings.
1969: Astronaut Neil
Armstrong is the first human to walk on the
moon's surface.
1994-1999: Clementine and
Lunar Prospector data suggest that water ice may
exist at the lunar poles.
2003: The European Space
Agency's SMART-1 lunar orbiter inventories key
chemical elements.
2007-2008: Japan's second
lunar spacecraft, Kaguya, and China's first
lunar spacecraft, Chang'e 1, both begin one-year
missions orbiting the moon; India's
Chandrayaan-1 soon follows in lunar orbit.
2008: The NASA Lunar Science
Institute is formed to help lead NASA's research
activities related to lunar exploration goals.
2009: NASA's LRO and LCROSS
launch together, beginning the U.S. return to
lunar exploration. In October, LCROSS was
directed to impact a permanently shadowed region
near the lunar south pole, resulting in the
discovery of water ice.
2011: Twin GRAIL spacecraft
launch to map the interior of the moon from
crust to core, and NASA begins the ARTEMIS
mission to study the moon's interior and surface
composition.
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Now, the Moon Has Got a Home on Earth: ESA's
New Online Moon School

|| April 22, 2016 ||
ESA has set its sights on our Moon, with a
vision of working together with international
partners to return to our closest neighbour.
What have scientists learnt about the Moon since
the first probe in 1959 and the Apollo lunar
landing 10 years later? What questions are
unanswered and what is the future of lunar
exploration?
An interactive web documentary launched today
allows users to explore these questions and the
missions to the Moon through European scientists
who are working on lunar science right now.
By having the scientists and experts express
their views and ideas, the website offers a
one-stop-shop to learn about the past, present
and future of lunar exploration.
From radio telescopes on the far side of the
Moon to how Earth’s natural satellite formed,
the interactive documentary is a comprehensive
guide for a general audience.
Featuring interviews with
scientists from all over Europe and a timeline
of all the world’s missions to the Moon, the
website is a repository of knowledge where you
can keep coming back to find more.
ESA’s Massimo Sabbatini explains: “We built a
web documentary where the user is encouraged to
discover the content through their own
curiosity. We will keep updating the information
and expand it to other domains of human and
robotic exploration in the future.”
Browse and explore through themes of science and
technology or via the lunar missions. You are
encouraged to immerse yourself in the many
aspects of flying to the Moon and performing
science on the Moon. From launch and orbital
dynamics, to cameras and rovers, from Surveyor-1
to the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment
Explorer, users can find out why the Moon is in
the spotlight again.
Visit the website here
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March 16, 1966: Gemini's First Docking of
Two Spacecraft in Earth Orbit
On March 16, 1966,
command pilot Neil Armstrong and pilot
David Scott successfully docked their
Gemini VIII spacecraft with the Agena
target vehicle, the first-ever linking
of two spacecraft together in Earth
orbit.
|
||April
14, 2016 || On March 16, 1966, command pilot Neil Armstrong and pilot David Scott successfully docked their Gemini VIII spacecraft with the Agena target vehicle, the first-ever linking of two spacecraft together in Earth orbit. This crucial spaceflight technology milestone would prove vital to the success of future moon landing missions. Catching up with already-orbiting spacecraft also has been essential during missions to the International Space Station.
The astronauts aboard the Gemini spacecraft took this side view photograph of the Agena target vehicle at a distance of 45 feet during an inspection prior to docking. The two spacecraft were in the third orbit of the mission, above the west coast of Mexico.
Because of problems with the Gemini spacecraft control system, the crew was forced to undock after approximately 30 minutes, as the spacecraft-target vehicle combination had begun to encounter increasing yaw and roll rates. The crew regained control of their spacecraft by using the reentry control system (RCS), and the decision was made in Mission Control to follow mission rules that dictated once the RCS was activated, the crew must be brought home. The Gemini VIII landed early in a secondary landing area in the Pacific, splashing down within two miles of the predicted impact point 10 hours, 41 minutes after liftoff.
( Editor: Sarah Loff: NASA)
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The Moon Engulfed in Permanent, Lopsided,
Dust Cloud
Darryl Waller Writing
This image
shows an artist's conception of the
lunar dust exosphere surrounding the
moon. The color represents the
amount of material ejected from the
surface, showing a peak in the apex
direction. A haze of dust is shown
around the moon. Gray faded circles
are overlaid on the lunar surface to
represent the random nature of the
primary impactors. An artist's
conception of the LADEE spacecraft's
trajectory is also shown. Credits:
University of Colorado
Boulder/Daniel Morgan/Jamey Szalay
|
||April
11, 2016 ||New
science results from NASA’s Lunar Atmosphere and
Dust Environment Explorer, or LADEE, mission
indicate that the moon is engulfed in a permanent,
but lopsided, dust cloud that increases in density
when annual events like the Geminids meteor shower
spew shooting stars, according to a new study led by
University of Colorado Boulder.
"Knowledge about the dusty environments in space has
practical applications," said CU-Boulder physics
Professor Mihaly Horanyi. "Knowing where the dust is
and where it is headed in the solar system could
help mitigate hazards for future human exploration,
including dust particles damaging spacecraft or
harming astronauts."
The cloud was discovered using data from a detector
on board LADEE called the Lunar Dust Experiment (LDEX)
designed and built by CU-Boulder. LDEX charted more
than 140,000 impacts during the six-month long
mission, which launched in September 2013 and
orbited the moon for about six months. NASA’s Ames
Research Center in Moffett Field, California, was
responsible for spacecraft design, development,
testing and mission operations, in addition to
managing the overall mission.
“The LDEX team has been painstakingly analyzing
their data since the LADEE mission ended on April
18, 2014,” said LADEE project scientist at Ames,
Rick Elphic. “Their results answer one of the big
LADEE science questions: is there a dust component
to the tenuous lunar atmosphere? And if so, why is
it there?”
According to Horanyi, the cloud is primarily made up
of tiny dust grains kicked up from the moon’s
surface by the impact of high-speed, interplanetary
dust particles. A single dust particle from a comet
striking the moon’s surface lofts thousands of
smaller dust specks into the airless environment,
and the lunar cloud is maintained by regular impacts
from such particles.
“Identifying this permanent dust cloud engulfing the
moon was a nice gift from this mission,” said
Horanyi, the principal investigator on LDEX and the
lead author of the study. “We can carry these
findings over to studies of other airless planetary
objects like the moons of other planets and
asteroids.”
A paper on the subject appears in the June 17 issue
of Nature. Co-authors on the study include Jamey
Szalay, Sascha Kempf, Eberhard Grun and Zoltan
Sternovsky from CU-Boulder, Juergen Schmidt from the
University Oulu in Finland, and Ralf Srama from the
University of Stuttgart in Germany.
The first hints of a cloud of dust around the moon
came in the late 1960s when NASA cameras aboard
unmanned moon landers captured a bright glow during
lunar sunsets. Several years later, Apollo
astronauts orbiting the moon reported a significant
glow above the lunar surface when approaching
sunrise, a phenomenon brighter than the sun alone
should have been able to create at that location.
Since the new findings don’t square with the Apollo
reports of a thicker, higher dust cloud, conditions
back then may have been somewhat different. The dust
on the moon -- which is dark and sticky and
regularly dirtied the suits of moonwalking
astronauts -- was created over several billion years
as interplanetary dust particles incessantly pounded
the rocky lunar surface.
Many of the cometary dust particles impacting lunar
surface are traveling at thousands of miles per hour
in a retrograde, or counterclockwise orbit around
the sun, the opposite orbital direction of the solar
system’s planets. This causes high-speed, near
head-on collisions with the dust particles and the
moon’s leading surface as the Earth-moon system
travel together around the sun .
Media contact: Darryl Waller, 650-604-4789
( Editor: Sharon Lozano: NASA)
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NASA's LRO Moves Closer to the Lunar Surface
Nancy Neal Jones
Writing
The image is a
visualization of the LRO spacecraft as
it passes low over the moon¹s surface
near the lunar South Pole. From this
vantage point LRO will continue to make
detailed measurements of the lunar
surface, and now from its lower orbit
near the South Pole will make unique
observations of selected areas. Credits:
NASA/GSFC/SVS |
||April 10, 2016||NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has completed a maneuver that lowered the spacecraft’s orbit to within 20 kilometers (12 miles) above areas near the lunar South Pole, the closest the spacecraft has ever been to the lunar surface.
On Monday, May 4, 2015 flight controllers at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland performed two station keeping burns to change LRO’s orbit. The new orbit allows LRO to pass within 20 km (12 miles) of the South Pole and 165 km (103 miles) over the North Pole.
"We're taking LRO closer to the moon than we've ever done before, but the maneuver is similar to all other station keeping maneuvers, so the mission operations team knows exactly what to do,” said Steve Odendahl, LRO mission manager from NASA Goddard.
To optimize science return, team members made the decision to change the orbit after determining that the new orbit configuration poses no danger to the spacecraft. LRO can operate for many years at this orbit.
The new orbit enables exciting new science and will see improved measurements near the South Pole. Two of the instruments benefit significantly from the orbit change. The return signal from the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA) laser shots will become stronger, producing a better signal. LOLA will obtain better measurements of specific regions near the South Pole that have unique illumination conditions. Diviner will be able to see smaller lunar features through the collection of higher resolution data.
“The lunar poles are still places of mystery where the inside of some craters never see direct sunlight and the coldest temperatures in the solar system have been recorded,” said John Keller, LRO project scientist at NASA Goddard. “By lowering the orbit over the South Pole, we are essentially magnifying the sensitivity of the LRO instruments which will help us understand the mechanisms by which water or other volatiles might be trapped there.”
Launched on June 18, 2009, LRO has collected a treasure trove of data with its seven powerful instruments, making an invaluable contribution to our knowledge about the moon. LRO is managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
For more information on LRO
Nancy Neal Jones:
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
(
Editor: Lynn Jenner: NASA)
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This was 1982 and
Won't Be Again Until 2033: The Supermoon Lunar
Eclipse
Photo credit:
NASA/Rami Daud |
||April 09, 2016||The
supermoon lunar eclipse captured as it moved over
NASA’s Glenn Research Center on September 27, 2015.
This rare event last occurred in
1982 and won’t happen again until 2033. NASA Goddard
deputy project scientist Noah Petro explains more on
the science behind this phenomenon.
( Editor: Kelly Heidman: NASA)
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The Moon Rises in
Audience with the Noctilucent Clouds
Released
08/08/2013 5:56 pm: Copyright ESA/NASA
|
March 26, 2016: Photograph
taken by ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano from on board
the International Space Station showing a rising
crescent Moon seen through rare noctilucent clouds.
Luca is part of the six-strong Expedition 36 crew
currently resident on the ISS. More about his
six-month Volare Mission: Volare mission website and
Luca Parmitano's blog. More of his photographs are
available on
Flickr
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Ancient Polar Ice
Reveals Tilting of Earth’s Moon
Kimberly
Williams Writing
This
polar hydrogen map of the moon’s
northern and southern hemispheres
identifies the location of the moon’s
ancient and present day poles. In the
image, the lighter areas show higher
concentrations of hydrogen and the
darker areas show lower concentrations.
Credits: James Keane, University of
Arizona; Richard Miller, University of
Alabama at Huntsville |
March 24, 2016: Did the
“man in the moon” look different from ancient Earth?
New NASA-funded research provides evidence that the
spin axis of Earth’s moon shifted by about five
degrees roughly three billion years ago. The
evidence of this motion is recorded in the
distribution of ancient lunar ice, evidence of
delivery of water to the early solar system.
“The same face of the moon has not always pointed
towards Earth,” said Matthew Siegler of the
Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona, lead
author of a paper in today’s journal Nature. “As the
axis moved, so did the face of the ‘man in the
moon.’ He sort of turned his nose up at the Earth.”
This interdisciplinary research was conducted across
multiple institutions as part of NASA’s Solar System
Exploration Research Virtual Institute (SSERVI)
based at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon
Valley, California.
Water ice can exist on Earth’s moon in areas of
permanent shadow. If ice on the moon is exposed to
direct sunlight it evaporates into space. Authors of
the Nature article show evidence that a shift of the
lunar spin axis billions of years ago enabled
sunlight to creep into areas that were once shadowed
and likely previously contained ice.
The researchers found that the ice that survived
this shift effectively “paints” a path along which
the axis moved. They matched the path with models
predicting where the ice could remain stable and
inferred the moon’s axis had moved by approximately
five degrees. This is the first physical evidence
that the moon underwent such a dramatic change in
orientation and implies that much of the polar ice
on the moon is billions of years old.
“The new findings are a compelling view of the
moon’s dynamic past,” said Dr. Yvonne Pendleton,
director of SSERVI, which supports lunar and
planetary science research to advance human
exploration of the solar system through scientific
discovery. “It is wonderful to see the results of
several missions pointing to these insights.”
The authors analyzed data from several NASA
missions, including Lunar Prospector, Lunar
Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), Lunar Crater and
Observation Sensing Satellite (LCROSS), and the
Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL), to
build the case for a change in the moon’s
orientation. Topography from the Lunar Orbiter Laser
Altimeter (LOLA) and thermal measurements from the
Diviner lunar radiometer – both on LRO – are used to
aid the interpretation of Lunar Prospector neutron
data that support the polar wander hypothesis.
Siegler noticed that the distribution of ice
observed at each of the lunar poles appeared to be
more related to each other than previously thought.
Upon further investigation, Siegler – and co-author
Richard Miller of the University of Alabama at
Huntsville – discovered that ice concentrations were
displaced from each pole by the same distance, but
in exactly opposite directions, suggesting the spin
axis in the past was tilted from what we see today.
A change in the tilt means that some of the ice
deposited long ago has since evaporated as it was
exposed to sunlight, but those areas that remain in
permanent shadow between the old orientation and the
new one retain their ice, and thus indicate what
happened.
A
cross-section through the Moon,
highlighting the antipodal nature of
lunar polar volatiles (in purple),
and how they trace an ancient spin
pole. The reorientation from that
ancient spin pole (red arrow) to the
present-day spin pole (blue arrow)
was driven by the formation and
evolution of the Procellarum—a
region on the nearside of the Moon
associated with a high abundance of
radiogenic heat producing elements
(green), high heat flow, and ancient
volcanic activity. Credits: James
Tuttle Keane, University of Arizona
|
A planetary body can shift on its
axis when there is a very large change in mass
distribution. Co-author James Keane, of the
University of Arizona in Tucson, modelled the way
changes in the lunar interior would have affected
the moon’s spin and tilt. In doing so, he found the
Procellarum region on the lunar near-side was the
only feature that could match the direction and
amount of change in the axis indicated by the ice
distributions near the poles. Furthermore,
concentrations of radioactive material in the
Procellarum region are sufficient to have heated a
portion of the lunar mantle, causing a density
change significant enough to reorient the moon.
Some of this heated mantle material melted and came
to the surface to form the visible dark patches that
fill large lunar basins known as mare. It’s these
mare patches that give the man in the moon his
“face.”
Siegler, Miller, and co-author David Lawrence of
Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel,
Maryland are part of the Volatiles, Regolith and
Thermal Investigations Consortium for Exploration
and Science team, one of nine teams funded by SSERVI.
Said Siegler, “These findings may open the door to
further discoveries on the interior evolution of the
moon, as well as the origin of water on the moon and
early Earth.”
For more information about SSERVI and the finding,
visit. For more
information about NASA’s Ames Research Center,
visit
Kimberly Williams: Ames Research Center:
650-604-2457: kimberly.k.williams@nasa.gov
( Editor: Kimberly Williams: NASA)
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