Tag: Moon

China’s rover about to go to sleep for the long lunar night.

9:15 am

China’s rover is about to go to sleep for the long lunar night.

According to Wu Fenglei of the Beijing Aerospace Control Center, the lander will “go to sleep” at about 7 a.m. on Christmas Day and the moon rover, Jade Rabbit, will fall asleep at about 1 a.m. on Boxing Day. The forthcoming lunar night, expected to begin on Dec. 26, will last for about two weeks, experts with the center estimated. During their “sleep”, both lander and rover will have to tolerate minus 180 degrees Celsius. Scientists tested the lander early Tuesday to ensure it can stand the temperature drop. Both lander and rover are stable, said Wu, adding they have completed a series of scientific tasks in the past two days.

This report states the rover landed in Sinus Iridum, the original announced landing site, contradicting other reports that said the lander came down in Mare Imbrium.

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After a successful soft landing, China’s lunar rover Yutu has successfully rolled onto the lunar surface.

10:58 pm

The competition heats up: After a successful soft landing, China’s lunar rover Yutu has successfully rolled onto the lunar surface.

The real significance of this mission is that China has now demonstrated that it has developed the engineering to achieve a controlled soft landing on another world. With this technology, they can move on to building a manned lander, something only the U.S. has been able to accomplish.

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China next lunar mission, set to launch next month, will have a rover named “Yutu”.

8:41 am

China’s next lunar mission, set to launch next month, will have a rover named “Yutu”.

In Chinese folklore, Yutu is the white pet rabbit of Chang’e, the moon goddess who has lent her name to the Chinese lunar mission. Legend has it that, after swallowing a magic pill, Chang’e took her pet and flew toward the moon, where she became a goddess, and has lived there with the white jade rabbit ever since.

Chang’e 2 is the name of the entire mission.

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Some spectacular oblique images from Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter have been released.

1:06 pm

Some spectacular oblique images from Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) have been released.

The top three images are all oblique. Make sure you click through to the full caption of each image to get more information.

The Lunar Alps image is especially interesting to those who have ever explored the Moon with a telescope from Earth. The rill shown is well known to amateurs, as are the Montes Alpes, or Alps Mountains, adjacent to it. From Earth that rill definitely looks like a meandering river canyon. This LRO image resolves it into a canyon made up of a series of crater-like depressions, a geological feature quite different from the river canyons of Earth.

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Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter inaugurates a new website of its images of the landing or impact sites of every human vehicle to arrive or crash on the Moon.

9:47 pm

Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter inaugurates a new website of its images of the landing or impact sites of every human vehicle to arrive or crash on the Moon.

I found the site because they have a new release of images of the impact crater produced when Ranger 7 hit the Moon on July 28, 1964.

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In an engineering test, LADEE successfully used a laser to beam information back from the Moon this past weekend.

8:25 am

In an engineering test, LADEE successfully used a laser to beam information back from the Moon this past weekend.

Lasers could enhance space communications and lead to radical changes in spacecraft design. Today’s spacecraft communicate with radio, but radiofrequency wavelengths are so long that they require large dishes to capture the signals. Laser wavelengths are 10,000 times shorter than radio, the upshot being that a spacecraft could deliver much more data then even the best modern radio system. For scale, NASA says that the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) spacecraft that’s carrying this laser experiment would take 639 hours to download an average-length HD movie using ordinary S-band communications. LLCD could download the film in less than eight minutes.

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China’s first unmanned lunar lander is now scheduled for launch before the end of the year.

9:45 pm

The competition heats up: China’s first unmanned lunar lander is now scheduled for launch before the end of the year.

This mission is the second stage in their long term plans for unmanned lunar exploration. It began with an orbiter which mapped the surface in high detail, followed now by a lander, which will then be followed by a sample return mission.

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Scientists using data from India’s Chandrayaan-1 space probe have detected new evidence of water inside one crater.

9:10 am

More water on the Moon: Scientists using data from India’s Chandrayaan-1 space probe have detected new evidence of water inside one lunar crater.

What makes this detection important is that this particular water was not placed there by the solar wind or asteroids. Its chemistry suggests it seeped upward from deep within the Moon’s interior.

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Data from an experiment on Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has confirmed that light plastics can provide sufficient protection for humans against radiation.

11:45 am

Data from an experiment on Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has confirmed that light plastics can provide sufficient protection for humans against radiation.

This is very good news indeed. Combined with the data from Curiosity, which indicated that the radiation levels in interplanetary space were less intense that expected, it appears that radiation will not be a serious obstacle to interplanetary travel.

Now we just have to get the bone loss and vision problems solved.

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Radar images of asteroid 1998 QE2, flying past the Earth today, show that it has its own moon.

9:05 am

Radar images of asteroid 1998 QE2, flying past the Earth today, show that it has its own moon.

When astronomers analyzed radar readings to create their first maps of 1998 QE2, the big asteroid that’s due to sail past Earth on Friday, they were surprised to find that it has a moon twice as big as an ocean liner. 1998 QE2 itself is way bigger: The latest readings from NASA’s Deep Space Network antenna in Goldstone, Calif., are consistent with earlier estimates that the asteroid is about 1.7 miles (2.7 kilometers wide). But the moon is hefty as well. Astronomers estimate its diameter at 2,000 feet (600 meters).

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The impact of a 100 pound meteorite on the Moon in March produced the brightest flash ever recorded.

9:45 am

The impact of a 100 pound meteorite on the Moon in March produced the brightest flash ever recorded.

Anyone looking at the Moon at the moment of impact could have seen the explosion–no telescope required. For about one second, the impact site was glowing like a 4th magnitude star.

Ron Suggs, an analyst at the Marshall Space Flight Center, was the first to notice the impact in a digital video recorded by one of the monitoring program’s 14-inch telescopes. “It jumped right out at me, it was so bright,” he recalls.

The 40 kg meteoroid measuring 0.3 to 0.4 meters wide hit the Moon traveling 56,000 mph. The resulting explosion1 packed as much punch as 5 tons of TNT.

It will be really interesting to see the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter images of the impact site, which can’t be taken until the spacecraft passes over the site and can photograph it.

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The words of NASA’s chief: “NASA is not going to the Moon with a human as a primary project probably in my lifetime.”

12:17 pm

The words of NASA’s chief: “NASA is not going to the Moon with a human as a primary project probably in my lifetime.”

He’s right. Instead, others will do it. And the ones who do it from the United States, privately financed for profit, will do it quickly, efficiently, and often, three things NASA has not been able to do at all since the 1960s.

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Using Kepler scientists have discovered a three planet solar system with one planet slightly larger than our Moon.

2:08 pm

Using Kepler astronomers have discovered a three planet solar system with one planet slightly larger than our Moon.

Kepler-37’s host star belongs to the same class as our sun, although it is slightly cooler and smaller. All three planets orbit the star at less than the distance Mercury is to the sun, suggesting they are very hot, inhospitable worlds. [The moon-sized] Kepler-37b orbits every 13 days at less than one-third Mercury’s distance from the sun. The estimated surface temperature of this smoldering planet, at more than 800 degrees Fahrenheit (700 degrees Kelvin), would be hot enough to melt the zinc in a penny. Kepler-37c and Kepler-37d, orbit every 21 days and 40 days, respectively.

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