Elon Musk has indicated he expects SpaceX’s Starship to be able to deliver humans to the Moon before 2024.
Humanity is in the midst of another space race, this time driven by commercial companies as much as governments. Multiple entities are eager to send people to the Moon and Mars, but Elon Musk believes his company’s craft will be able to deliver astronauts to the moon in just a couple of years.
Musk was replying to a tweet from Everything Artemis when he made the revelation.
NASA is working with commercial companies to ensure there is sustainable power on the moon to power any future bases.
With renewed interest in space and colonization in the solar system, having reliable, sustainable power sources is a critical step. NASA is working with several companies to ensure they can meet any future power needs on the moon.
☀️ We're working with industry on solar arrays for @NASAArtemis missions on the Moon's surface. Five companies will design technologies that could provide a reliable, sustainable power source for habitats, rovers, and even construction systems: https://t.co/5sZNpvWlpb pic.twitter.com/6JILM3FNVG
— NASA (@NASA) March 23, 2021
Niki Werkheiser, director of technology maturation in NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD), told the Houston Chronicle how important the technology was to NASA’s efforts.
“We are thrilled with the proposals received and even more excited to see the designs that result from the base effort,” Werkheiser said. “Having reliable power sources on the Moon is key to almost anything we do on the surface. By working with five different companies to design these prototype systems, we are effectively mitigating the risk that is inherent to developing such cutting-edge technologies.”
Space pioneer Elon Musk said on a podcast today with Kara Swisher that becoming a multi-planet species is fundamentally important to ensuring the long-term survival of life as we know it:
We are able to lower the cost of access to space so we are certainly saving taxpayers a lot of money. We’re advancing the technology of launch by having reusable rockets. Reusability is very important for improving access to space. It’s really just kind of insane to have a rocket be expendable. You build this incredibly exquisite machine and then it comes down and smashes in the ocean. Then there is like debris at the bottom of the ocean. This is crazy.
Ultimately, you want many companies competing (in space) to serve the greater good or serve the customer essentially. You want multiple companies to advance the future of space flight so that we can ultimately become a multi-planet species and a spacefaring civilization. This is fundamentally important to ensuring the long-term survival of life as we know it. We must become a multi-planet species.
I am not trying to be doom and gloom here but the fossil record does show that there have been many extinction events over the millenia. These are from meteors, super volcanoes, and just from natural planet variation. It does become very severe but at a pace that would seem slow to us. Then eventually the sun is going to expand and engulf and incinerate Earth. This is for sure going to happen but not anytime soon.
Several years ago I had some private dinners with Jeff Bezos talking about space. He has a similar view that we need to be a spacefaring civilization and multi-planet species. I have some minor disagreements with him. I don’t think that we want to be living on a space station. I think we want to be living on a planet. But whatever, if you have advanced rockets you can decide whether you want to live on a space station or live on Mars.
Right now, we have a long way to go because we can’t even get back to the Moon. I think it is sad that we were able to go to the Moon in 1969 and here we are in 2020 and can’t even go back to the Moon. We definitely want to make sure that civilization is improving over time.
“America’s space economy and America’s space agenda is really on fire right now,” says NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine. “That’s in large part because of President Trump and in fact bipartisan support in the House and Senate. What we are doing is inspiring the nation for American greatness to go out decades into the future. It really is starting right now with America’s and President Trump’s Moon to Mars program. Without him, this would not be happening.”
Jim Bridenstine, Administrator of NASA, discusses the NASA Economic Impact Report that was released today and says that under Trump America’s space agenda is on fire:
Today’s NASA Economic Impact Report is about direct economic output. What’s not in the report are all of the advancements that come from NASA that get commercialized over decades. For example, satellites and internet broadband. Then from there, we think about not just communications but navigation, how we produce food, and how we produce energy. Also, how we predict the weather, how we do disaster relief, and national security.
President Trump is as focused as any president in history on America’s space agenda. That’s not just exploration. It’s also national security and defense. I used to say, President Trump is more supportive of space than any president since John F. Kennedy. But I will also tell you, John F. Kennedy didn’t create the Space Force. America’s space economy and America’s space agenda is really on fire right now. That’s in large part because of President Trump and in fact bipartisan support in the House and Senate.
The economic impact of the Artemis Program alone is over 60,000 jobs in 2019. The agenda to get to the Moon is ramping up right now. By 2021, those numbers are going to double. These are not low paying jobs. These are high tech jobs employing highly qualified people. These are the kind of things that also inspire the next generation to go into the STEM fields to make sure that America remains preeminent in technology.
If you just walk around NASA today and ask people why they work at the agency, they will tell you about how inspired they were when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the Moon. Then we did five Moon missions after that. What we are doing is inspiring the nation for American greatness to go out decades into the future. It really is starting right now with America’s and President Trump’s Moon to Mars program. Without him, this would not be happening.
President Trump signed an executive order further solidifying U.S. policy toward mining and resource acquisition in space.
According to Space.com, the executive order has been in the works for roughly a year, and is “called Encouraging International Support for the Recovery and Use of Space Resources.” The order follows the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, not the 1979 Moon Treaty that was largely ignored by the U.S. and other space-capable nations. Under the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, mining and resource gathering in space is allowed.
“As America prepares to return humans to the moon and journey on to Mars, this executive order establishes U.S. policy toward the recovery and use of space resources, such as water and certain minerals, in order to encourage the commercial development of space,” said Scott Pace, deputy assistant to the president and executive secretary of the U.S. National Space Council.
With the U.S. once again making space exploration a priority, including a planned moon based within the decade, this executive order provides clear guidelines for U.S. space organizations.
The European Space Agency (ESA) has created a prototype oxygen plant to create oxygen from moon dust, according to a post on the agency’s site.
Space exploration is once again front and center on the agendas of governments and corporations alike. The U.S. recently created Space Force as a sixth branch of the military, Amazon established new headquarters for its space-based initiative and a myriad of other companies are working to cash in on the new space age. Unfortunately, long-term colonization still poses a number of significant hurdles, not the least of which is oxygen.
The ESA may be on to a solution, however, at least in the context of a future lunar base. According to their post, “samples returned from the lunar surface confirm that lunar regolith is made up of 40–45% percent oxygen by weight, its single most abundant element. But this oxygen is bound up chemically as oxides in the form of minerals or glass, so is unavailable for immediate use.”
The method used to separate the oxygen out, salt electrolysis, was originally developed for commercial alloy and metal production. As a side benefit, the process of harvesting the oxygen “also converts the regolith into usable metal alloys.”
The potential benefits go far beyond just having a way to produce breathable air, important though that is. The oxygen can also be used to create fuel on a lunar base, while the alloy byproducts may have a use in manufacturing, spacecraft repair and other applications.
The current prototype has been set up in the Netherlands, and the ESA is shooting for the mid-2020s for the first technology demonstration.
If you happened to look into the sky early Saturday, you probably witnessed one of the coolest natural phenomenon’s!
Saturday, July 12 marked the first supermoon of the summer and was captured in hundreds of photographs across the globe.
So, what is a “supermoon?” According to the Weather Channel, a supermoon occurs when a new or full moon coincides with a perigee – when the moon is closest to the Earth. While they are incredibly beautiful, perigee moons are not that uncommon, and two are expected within the next two months- August 10 and September 9.
“Generally speaking, full Moons occur near perigee every 13 months and 18 days, so it’s not all that unusual,” Geogg Chester of the U.S. Naval Observatory said in a statement for NASA. “In fact, just last year there were three perigee Moons in a row, but only one was widely reported.”
According to NASA, the supermoon appeared 14 percent larger and 30 percent brighter than normal for those who saw it.
Check out some pictures of the supermoon below.
Supermoon rising over Earth this weekend http://t.co/PV2pFN7ACN pic.twitter.com/E50eIsD8Pc
— RT (@RT_com) July 11, 2014
Sky watchers were treated to a supermoon overnight with some of our cameraman capturing its beauty. #9News pic.twitter.com/HqwUU6Cnlw
— Nine News Australia (@9NewsAUS) July 12, 2014
Road to the supermoon … also this morning. By our friend Damian McCudden / Landscape Photographer pic.twitter.com/NdZn4SH3h4
— EarthSky (@earthskyscience) July 12, 2014
First of three ‘Supermoons’ of the summer is seen http://t.co/oP40ze3M7P pic.twitter.com/E3GmfbWMFg
— The Boston Globe (@BostonGlobe) July 12, 2014
Today's supermoon has risen in Hong Kong. Photo by our friend Matthew Chin.
http://t.co/q6TdpSbZEw pic.twitter.com/Nkn1DD7Rfr
— EarthSky (@earthskyscience) July 12, 2014
The supermoon is back: http://t.co/LB98Qqp4p9 pic.twitter.com/p8aKsg8CUD
— ABC News (@ABC) July 12, 2014
Tomorrow's full moon will be a SUPER MOON! Details, in one easy pic: #NBC7 #SanDiego #FullMoon #SuperMoon #Howl pic.twitter.com/HZg8DSRhkr
— Jodi Kodesh (@NBCJodi) July 11, 2014
Image via Wikimedia Commons
Tonight’s the night. Millions of people in the Earth’s western hemisphere will be treated to a spectacular event tonight when the moon falls beneath the shadow of the Earth.
The event, called a full lunar eclipse, will cast the moon in an eerie orange light and produce an event colloquially known as a “blood moon.” The eclipse will begin at around 2 am and will continue for three hours as the moon becomes dark and eventually passes through the Earth’s shadow.
Though not as rare as a solar eclipse, a full lunar eclipse is rare enough that it sparks curiosity among those not familiar with such an event. Like many other celestial happenings, it also brings its share of pseudo-scientific and metaphysical prophecies from astrologers and others. Luckily, real scientists are very familiar with lunar eclipses, their cause, and what people can learn from the events.
Today NASA ‘s Goddard Space Flight Center released a new video detailing everything most anyone might want to know about the upcoming eclipse. As NASA astronomer Michelle Thaller explains in the video, the sunlight that normally produces the bright reflection seen coming from the moon will be blocked tonight by the Earth itself. Thaller even reveals that the blood moon effect and color is produced because the light reaching the moon passes through the Earth’s atmosphere, the same atmosphere that generally reflects more blue light, leaving the red-tinged edge of the visible spectrum to pass through.
As Thaller mentions in the video, NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will be reliant on battery power during the eclipse (it normally runs on solar power). Though this particular eclipse will mean the LRO will have to make two full passes withing the Earth’s shadow during the event, NASA’s LRO project scientists will be shutting off many of the probe’s instruments and are confident that the LRO will survive this eclipse, as it has many others.
Image via NASA
The moon is all set to turn red starting on late Monday when it aligns with the Sun and Earth, assuring a celestial spectacle for sky gazers. Astronomers claim that the total lunar eclipse will stretch into the wee hours of Tuesday.
This rare astronomical phenomenon is the first of four consecutive lunar eclipses called a lunar tetrad. But according the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Tuesday’s eclipse will the last total lunar eclipse that will be visible from the United States until the year 2019. With favorable weather, the ‘blood moon‘ can be seen from most parts of the country, except for Alaska and New England.
Alaskans will be able to see a partially eclipsed moon as it rises. For residents of New England, however, the moon will have set before the end of the eclipse.
Get excited for next week’s lunar eclipse! http://t.co/uYDd6pPSFa (Image: Spaceweather) pic.twitter.com/FEoZzbFXg4
— Jennifer Welsh (@MicrobeLover) April 11, 2014
People won’t have to use binoculars or telescopes to enjoy the show stopping eclipse. Chairperson of the Astronomy Department at Foothill College, Andrew Fraknoi, stated that people need only bring their eyes to find the full moon.
After this tetrad, the next eclipse should occur on October 8. The next series of eclipses won’t take place again until the year 2032. NASA is due to provide live coverage of the event beginning at 2 a.m. EDT on NASA TV, their official website, as well as its social media accounts.
Despite the massive developments in astronomy and the way it has provided scientific explanations to various natural celestial phenomena, many people still maintain that there are religious and spiritual connections to eclipses – especially the ‘blood moon’. A Texas pastor named John Hagee came out with a book last year called Four Blood Moons: Something Is About to Change, which examines the “supernatural connection” of certain astronomical phenomena to prophecies in the bible.
Watch the moon turn blood red.
Image via YouTube
A full lunar eclipse is not nearly as rare as a solar eclipse, but the event still draws eyes to the heavens. This month people in the Earth’s western hemisphere will get to see the moon at its most impressive.
Early on the morning of April 15 the moon, Earth, and the sun will be perfectly in alignment. From Earth’s perspective this will cast the Earth’s shadow across the moon’s surface – a total lunar eclipse. The moon will appear to be cast in an orange light, creating the state known as a “blood moon.”
The event will be particularly scenic in North America, where this will be the last full lunar eclipse until the year 2019. The eclipse is scheduled to start at around 2 am EDT and will last for three hours.
“Sometimes they’ll happen and you’ll have to be somewhere else on Earth to see them,” said Noah Petro, deputy project scientist for NASA‘s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. “Most [residents] of the continental United States will be able to see the whole thing.”
Though the event will be a sight to see from Earth, Petro and his colleagues will be keeping careful watch on NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). Since the LRO relies on solar power to charge its batteries, the eclipse will mean the probe will be running without sunlight for an extended period.
The LRO has, of course, made it through lunar eclipses in the past. This time, however, the probe will have to make two complete passes through the Earth’s shadow before the event is over. Even so, Petro predicts that the LRO will make it through unscathed.
“For quite a while, people in LRO have been analyzing what’s going to happen during this eclipse,” said Petro. “The spacecraft will be going straight from the moon’s shadow to the Earth’s shadow while it orbits during the eclipse.
“We’re taking precautions to make sure everything is fine. We’re turning off the instruments and will monitor the spacecraft every few hours when it’s visible from Earth.”
Image via NASA
CosmoQuest, a collective of amateur astronomers that identify and map craters on various space objects, including the moon, has gotten so adept in their studies that their data has been used in scientific research and at times published.
Stuart Robbins, a research scientist at the University of Colorado’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics who led a comparative study between amateur and professional astronomy research stated, “What we can say is that a very large group of volunteers was able to chart these features on the moon just as well as professional researchers. More importantly, we now have evidence that we can use the power of crowdsourcing to gather more reliable data from the moon than we ever thought was possible before.”
CosmoQuest’s mission is to “create a community of people bent on together advancing our understanding of the universe; a community of people who are participating in doing science, who can explain why what they do matters, and what questions they are helping to answer. We want to create a community, and here is where we invite all of you to be a part of what we’re doing.”
The collective also offers online classes via its CosmoAcademy portal, and has submitted various stargazing tutorials via social media:
Robbins and his team gauged the findings of thousands of CosmoQuest members against that of eight scientists, using pictures taken by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. While amateur volunteers and scientists saw vastly different numbers of craters in the study area, averages for the two groups were statistically aligned. Robbins’ team called the results “reassuring” for CosmoQuest, which has crater-mapping projects for the moon, Mercury and the protoplanet Vesta.
Pamela Gay, who runs CosmoQuest out of Southern Illinois University Edwardsville said, “Put simply, the sky is large, and astronomers need all the help the public can offer.”
The study was published on March 4th in the online science journal Icarus.
Image via Wikimedia Commons
Space travel is something that’s usually reserved for government agencies with a lot of money to burn. SpaceX proved that private industry can do it too though with a little help from investors and its own deep pockets. Now Penn State University wants to do the same, but it’s looking to all of us for help.
Penn State University’s Lunar Lion team wants to send a lander to the moon. If successful, they would be the first university, and only the fourth team, to land a spacecraft on the moon. To realize their goals, they need funding.
The Lunar Lion team has taken to RocketHub to crowdfund their mission to the moon. They’re looking for $406,536 to fund the project of which they have already raised $22,794. With 34 days left, the team has plenty of time to reach their goal and become the first university to land on the moon.
Why should you want to support such an endeavor? Well, have you ever wanted to go to space? By supporting the Lunar Lion team, you can send a digital tweet or message to the moon with the lander and have it transmitted back to Earth for only $25. For $50, the team will let you transmit a six second voice message from the moon.
For those willing to shell out $100 or more, you can get some really cool stuff. For $100, you can have a 140 character message stored in a time capsule that will be sent up to the moon with the lander. For only $1 more, you can send as many 140 character messages to the moon as you want.
The Lunar Lion crowdfunding campaign will end on February 25. If successful, Penn State will go down in the history books for space travel and crowdfunding.
NASA’s commercial spaceflight program has largely been a success for the agency. Both SpaceX and Orbital Sciences have now performed successful resupply missions to the International Space Station (ISS).
With commercial spaceflight a success, NASA is now moving ahead with more commercial space industry partnerships. The agency this week announced that it is now looking for companies that can ferry cargo to the moon.
NASA is taking proposals on “reliable and cost-effective commercial robotic lunar lander capabilities.” These companies would have to deliver cargo to the moon’s surface, though NASA will also allow “commercial activities” on the moon to take place as long as its scientific missions are not affected.
This new initiative is part of the NASA’s current goals surrounding asteroid research and a manned mission to Mars. Resources on the moon such as water and oxygen could be used to support future space missions, including President’s Obama’s challenge to send humans to Mars by the 2030s.
“In recent years, lunar orbiting missions, such as NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, have revealed evidence of water and other volatiles, but to understand the extent and accessibility of these resources, we need to reach the surface and explore up close,” said Jason Crusan, director of Advanced Exploration Systems at NASA. “Commercial lunar landing capabilities could help prospect for and utilize these resources.”
The new lunar landers that NASA is envisioning would need to be able to collect lunar samples, deploy geophysical network assets, and search for resources. They would also need to land up to around 1,100 pounds of payload to “various lunar sites.”
“As NASA pursues an ambitious plan for humans to explore an asteroid and Mars, U.S. industry will create opportunities for NASA to advance new technologies on the moon,” said Greg Williams, deputy associate administrator for the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate at NASA. “Our strategic investments in the innovations of our commercial partners have brought about successful commercial resupply of the International Space Station, to be followed in the coming years by commercial crew. Lunar CATALYST will help us advance our goals to reach farther destinations.”
China made history on Saturday by successfully landing its first unmanned spacecraft on the moon. The Chang’e-3 reached the moon at about 9.12 p.m Saturday and delivered “Yutu”, nicknamed “Jade Rabbit”. Yutu is a solar powered, six-wheeled robotic rover, equipped with at least four cameras and a number of mechanical devices for sampling and analyzing the moon’s surface.
On Saturday, Zheng Yong-Chun, a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences announced, “Chang’e-3 has been landed successfully on the surface of the moon today”. This means that China becomes only the third country to achieve such a feat after the United States last landed in 1972, and the former Soviet Union in 1976.
The 1-ton rover will explore the moon’s surface, studying soil samples and rocks for at least three months. The Yutu moon rover is named after a pet rabbit that journeyed to the moon with the Chinese mythological goddess named Chang’e .
The lander drifted about 100 meters in altitude above the lunar landscape as it searched for a safe landing spot. The spacecraft eventually landed in the Sinus Iridum (known as the Bay of Rainbows) located on the northern hemisphere of the moon.
The lander also features a scientific gear that can observe the Earth and other celestial objects over the next 12 months. China is also expected to open a permanent space station in the Earth’s orbit, within the next decade.
Watch the Chinese blast off to the moon
http://youtu.be/lgZslWEQZHY
(image via YouTube)
China became the third nation in history to ‘soft-land’ a spacecraft on the moon Saturday, following in the footsteps of the United States and the former Soviet Union.
The unmanned spacecraft, Chang’e-3, touched down on the lunar surface, the first to do so in nearly four decades and comes two weeks after lift-off from Earth.
It will release will release a six-wheeled, solar-powered lunar rover called the “Jade Rabbit”, which is “Yutu” in Chinese, named for the pet of goddess Chang’e, who is said to live on the moon. It is equipped with four cameras and two mechanical legs that can dig up soil samples to a depth of 30 meters.
China’s information technology ministry said in a statement that the 140 kg. rover carries an optical telescope for astronomical observations as well as an ultraviolet camera that will monitor how solar activity affects the various layers of the Earth’s atmosphere, the troposphere, stratosphere and ionosphere.
The rover will remain on the moon for three months.
“It’s still a significant technological challenge to land on another world,” said Peter Bond, consultant editor for Jane’s Space Systems and Industry. “Especially somewhere like the moon, which doesn’t have an atmosphere so you can’t use parachutes or anything like that. You have to use rocket motors for the descent, and you have to make sure you go down at the right angle and the right rate of descent and you don’t end up in a crater on top of a large rock.”
Bond notes that is has been slow-going for the Chinese space program, but they are making great strides.
“They are taking their time with getting to know about how to fly humans into space, how to build space stations … how to explore the solar system, especially the moon and Mars,” Bond said. “They are making good strides, and I think over the next 10, 20 years they’ll certainly be rivaling Russia and America in this area and maybe overtaking them in some areas.”
Image via YouTube
China is blasting its first lunar rover into space, Sunday, December 1st, from Xichang Satellite Launch Center on China time – Dec. 2.
So what exactly are they looking for? Space.com said it was just to hit a milestone launch, adding to their space exploration program, with plans to set up their first permanent space station targeted for 2020. It is also allowing them the honor of eventually sending a man to the moon.
“Apart from launching astronauts into space, this is probably the most complex space mission attempted by China,” Australian space analyst Morris Jones told AFP. “It will also make China only the third nation to soft-land a spacecraft on the moon.” The others, obviously the U.S.A. and Russia.
The mission is called Chang’e 3 to the moon it’s nickname, Yutu, which means “Jade Rabbit” in Chinese.
It’s their way of making the world aware of their rising financial status. Yes, the communist nation who is now showing its brass is coming from a country formerly known as a poverty-stricken nation.
They have previously sent two probes up to orbit the moon, with one commanded to crash on the lunar surface when the mission was complete.
The six-wheeled rover was put on display in November in Beijing for public viewing. This is a rare occurrence for secretive China and its space program.
The rover’s designer, Shanghai Aerospace Systems Engineering Research Institute, claims several technological breakthroughs with the vehicle. They include its “autonomous” navigation system that includes wheels which are able to grip the powdery surface of the moon.
It can also climb better and travel faster, with speeds up to 200 meters (yards) per hour, according to the institute.
So far, China has sent a total of 10 astronauts into space on five separate space missions. They have also launched an orbiting space module named the Tiangong-1.
China, however, is still far behind the achievements of the USA and Russia. Both countries from which they have learned quite a bit.
Image via YouTube
NASA has revealed that its Lunar Laser Communication Demonstration (LLCD) set a record for transmitting data from the moon to Earth. The record was set on October 18, when the device transmitted data to Earth at 622 Mbps – six times the speed of other systems sent to the moon. The experiment represents the longest two-way laser communication in history.
The LLCD is an instrument on-board the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer satellite (LADEE). LADEE is a robotic probe launched back in September on a 100-day mission to examine the moon’s atmosphere. In addition to the record-setting download rate, the LLCD instrument also demonstrated a 20Mbps upload rate.
“It was amazing how quickly we were able to acquire the first signals, especially from such a distance,” said Don Cornwell, LLCD manager. “I attribute this success to the great work accomplished over the years by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory (MIT/LL) and their partnership with NASA.”
According to NASA, the LLCD is half the weight of older radio instruments and uses 25% less power. The instrument has now been used to carry high-definition video between the Earth and the moon. The device can also provide constant measurements of the distance between the Earth and the moon.
“Just imagine the ability to transmit huge amounts of data that would take days in a matter of minutes,” said Cornwell. “We believe laser-based communications is the next paradigm shift in future space communications.”
The LLCD instrument will continue to be tested throughout the next month. Researchers will be testing the laser communications during the day, during the different phases of the moon, and for different locations on Earth.
“LLCD is the first step on our roadmap toward building the next generation of space communication capability,” said Badri Younes, deputy associate administrator for space communications and navigation at NASA. “We are encouraged by the results of the demonstration to this point, and we are confident we are on the right path to introduce this new capability into operational service soon.”
There will be a partial lunar eclipse on Friday, October 18, though it maybe be a bit tricky to view from the vantage of North America. The eclipse will be at maximum at 7:50 p.m. EDT, as viewed from the Western Hemisphere.
Tomorrow’s event will be a penumbral lunar eclipse, which occurs when the Moon passes through the Earth’s penumbra. This penumbra causes a subtle darkening of the Moon’s surface.
The penumbra (from the Latin paene “almost, nearly” and umbra “shadow”) is the region in which only a portion of the light source is obscured by the obstructing body. An observer in the penumbra experiences a partial eclipse.
When a shadow is cast by a nearby object, the penumbra is small. Though, when the shadow is as far away as the distance between the moon and the Earth, roughly 238,000 miles, the penumbra is wide. It should also be noted that since the U.S. government is back up and running, these eclipses can now happen again.
For skywatchers in North and South America, maximum eclipse will occur around the time of moonrise, which is also the time of sunset. This is why the event will be difficult to see – the moon will be obscured by the Earth’s atmosphere. The eclipse can be better viewed the further east one is located.
For those watching in North America, the effects of the Earth’s shadow will be most evident on the lower right corner of the moon. And, the shadow will likely be more pronounced in photographs than with the naked eye, so a fast telephoto lens would be a good idea, if available.
For skywatchers in Africa, Europe and western Asia, the eclipse will occur in the middle of the night, when the moon is high in the sky. The fuzzy shadow will look like a slight reddish dimming of the normally bright full moon.
In related news, NASA’s Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer, or LADEE, is safely in orbit around the moon, regardless of the skeleton crew on hand at the space agency during the aforementioned shutdown. The probe has been tasked with studying gases surrounding the moon, as well as to search for electrically charged dust rising from the lunar surface.
Image via Wikimedia Commons.
Regardless of the government shutdown keeping a lot of NASA’s workers at home, the agency was still able to put its LADEE moon probe into lunar orbit.
The Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer, or LADEE, took off from Cape Caneveral, Florida, on September 6, on the back of a small rocket. Incidentally, a frog photobombed coverage of the launch. The craft was placed into a highly elliptical earth orbit. After travelling around earth three times, it was in position to activate the braking rocket, and fell into the orbit of the moon.
With the government shutdown in effect, 97% of NASA’s 18,000 employees have been furloughed. Though, LADEE’s flight controllers were still clocking in, monitoring the tricky maneuver which put the probe into moon orbit, according to deputy project scientist Greg Delory, of NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California.
Over the next couple of weeks, LADEE’s orbit will be adjusted, until it ends up 155 miles above the surface, the best vantage for studying gases surrounding the moon, as well as to search for electrically charged dust rising from the lunar surface. Delory adds that the government shutdown is not likely to affect a LADEE laser communication demonstration set for the end of the month.
Due to the gov't shutdown, all public NASA activities/events are cancelled or postponed until further notice. Sorry for the inconvenience.
— NASA (@NASA) October 1, 2013
Last week, NASA reactivated furloughed workers who were on the new Mars orbiter project, set to launch November 18th. Necessary personnel have also been kept on to monitor NASA’s communications satellites and various space probes.
Sorry, but we won't be tweeting/responding to replies during the government shutdown. Be back as soon as possible. http://t.co/qIx8cigrnb
— NASA (@NASA) October 1, 2013
Perhaps some day down the line, a sequel to George Clooney’s “Gravity” will appear on Lifetime, with astronauts being adrift in space because mission control has all been furloughed. NASA’s LADEE page is presently offline due to the shutdown.
Image via Wikimedia Commons.
Our solar system seems to be shrinking. Planning on moving to Mars? The idea sounded crazy in the past; however, recent strides show that this may become a reality within the near future.
Now evidence has surfaced that a moon within our solar system has more in common with Earth than what may have been originally thought.
One of Saturn’s moons, Titan, was recently discovered to contain a necessary component in the creation of plastic used on Earth. While orbiting Saturn, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft noted that Titan’s atmosphere contains propylene, which is an ingredient in developing plastic needed on earth. Car bumpers, storage containers, eating utensils, and many other items all require propylene.
The discovery was made by NASA prior to the government shutdown through Cassini’s composite infrared spectrometer (CIRS) instrument. The spacecraft has been in Saturn’s orbit since 2004, and will continue to orbit the planet until 2017.
Michael Flasar, who serves as the principal CIRS investigator, released a statement where he explained why the discovery was difficult to make, proving the competency of the program.
“This measurement was very difficult to make because propylene’s weak signature is crowded by related chemicals with much stronger signals. This success boosts our confidence that we will find still more chemicals long hidden in Titan’s atmosphere,” Michael Flaser said.
The following is a NASA radar image that Cassini captured depicting two moons “kissing” each other on the surface of Titan. The title of the image is referred to as “Titan’s Kissing Lakes” to substantiate the obvious depiction.
Conor Nixon, who is a NASA planetary scientist, served as the lead author of the research paper that explained this discovery of Titan’s atmosphere. He shared the news with the September 30th issue of Astrophysical Journal Letters.
“This chemical is all around us in everyday life, strung together in long chains to form a plastic called polypropylene. That plastic container at the grocery store with the recycling code 5 on the bottom, that’s polypropylene,” Conor Nixon said.
The following video provides more information about Saturn’s moon, Titan, and the connection between Titan’s atmosphere and that of earth’s atmosphere.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqyR_NfTw9s
[Images Via Wikimedia Commons/ Titan’s Globe Image Kissing Lakes Image Both Courtesy of NASA]
The “Harvest Moon” of 2013 will occur on September 19 in the Northern Hemisphere. The Harvest Moon is the traditional name of the full moon occurring closest to the autumnal equinox, that precedes the “Hunter’s Moon,” or the following full moon.
For those on the east coast of North America, the crest of the moon’s full phase comes right before sunrise tomorrow morning, at 7:13 AM to be precise. One can still see the Harvest Moon in full-effect for a few nights around September 18, 19 and 20 – it’s the succession of bright nights that define the event. The best way to see the Harvest Moon is to look up.
The Harvest Moon gets its name from the general brightness it emits, which allows farmers to work a few extra hours into the night. Harvest and Hunter’s Moons are unique, because the delay between moonrises on successive evenings is much shorter than usual, so there’s not a long stretch of darkness between sunset and moonrise. This phenomena occurs because the moon orbits the earth in the same direction the earth is rotating, allowing the moon to rise later each day.
Interestingly, the Maine Farmers Almanac, originating in the 1930’s, began to publish Native American full moon names, adapted from old Algonquian languages. Here’s a small list:
January: “Wolf Moon”, “Old Moon”
February: “Snow Moon”, “Hunger Moon”
March: “Worm Moon”, “Crow Moon”, “Sap Moon”, “Lenten Moon”
April: “Seed Moon”, “Pink Moon”, “Sprouting Grass Moon”, “Egg Moon”, “Fish Moon”
May: “Milk Moon”, “Flower Moon”, “Corn Planting Moon”
June: “Mead Moon”, “Strawberry Moon”, “Rose Moon”, “Thunder Moon”
July: “Hay Moon”, “Buck Moon”, “Thunder Moon”
August: “Corn Moon”, “Sturgeon Moon”, “Red Moon”, “Green Corn Moon”, “Grain Moon”
September: “Harvest Moon”, “Full Corn Moon”,
October: “Hunter’s Moon”, “Blood Moon”, “Sanguine Moon”
November: “Beaver Moon”, “Frosty Moon”
December: “Oak Moon”, “Cold Moon”, “Long Nights Moon”
So, tonight’s a night of the “Full Corn Moon.”
In related news, researchers have recently discovered magmatic water on the surface of the moon. Magmatic water is locked in mineral grains and might come from somewhere beneath the moon’s surface. Something to think about while gazing upon the “Frosty Moon” of November.
Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
