After nearly eleven and a half years in orbit around Saturn the Cassini spacecraft has made its last-ever targeted flyby of Enceladus, the 320-mile-wide moon of Saturn that has intrigued scientists and the public alike with its active water ice geysers for more than a decade since their discovery. On Saturday Dec. 19, 2015, Cassini performed its E-22…
Tag: moon
Is This New Picture of Earth From the Moon for Real? Yes, Yes It Is.
Today NASA released an amazing image of Earth taken from the Moon — specifically from lunar orbit by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has been studying our Moon since the summer of 2009. In it our planet appears as an incredibly bright blue globe with swashes of white clouds and Africa and northeastern South America clearly visible…
Why Do People Say the Moon is Made of Green Cheese?
So this isn’t about a scientific discovery by any means, but I did do a little bit of online research to discern the origin of the old expression that the Moon is “made of green cheese.” We’ve all heard it, and though I’m pretty sure that nobody has ever actually taken it as a fact (although when it…
What Would it Take to Knock the Moon Out of Orbit?
Whenever there’s news of an asteroid expected to pass closely by Earth (like this one did on Halloween 2015) at least one person will ask “what if it hit the Moon?” — as if that’s a scenario that somehow all of the astronomers around the world who specialize in near-Earth objects failed to take into…
Soar Over the Surface of Tethys with Cassini
On Nov. 11, 2015, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft passed relatively closely by Saturn’s moon Tethys, one of the ringed planet’s larger icy satellites. The animation above was made from 29 raw images acquired with Cassini’s narrow-angle camera as it passed by; you can see part of the incredibly cratered and ancient surface of this 662 mile (1,065 km) wide…
Pluto’s Moon Kerberos Gets Into the Picture
For decades, far-off Pluto and its moons were just a collection of bright spots in even our most powerful telescopes. Now the dwarf planet and its family of five moons has been revealed in intimate detail with the long-awaited flyby of the New Horizons spacecraft. Last week the “family portrait” of the Pluto system was made…
Icy Enceladus Shines in the Latest Images from Cassini
On Wednesday, Oct. 14 2015, Cassini performed its scheduled “E-20” close pass of Enceladus, a 320-mile-wide moon of Saturn that is now famous for the organics-laden ice geysers that fire from cracks in its southern crust. E-20 is the first of a series of three flybys to be performed before the end of 2015, specifically timed to…
Tons of Unprocessed Apollo Mission Photos Are Now Just a Click Away
This has made quite a splash across the internet over the past several weeks, and for good reason: the Project Apollo Archive is now on Flickr, giving anyone and everyone point-and-click access to some of the best scans of original Apollo mission photographs that have been made to date. Really, this is something you can get…
Get Ready For The First Total Supermoon Eclipse in 33 Years
It’s coming — on September 27 there will be a total lunar eclipse, the entirety of which will be visible across much of the western hemisphere! During total lunar eclipses the Moon passes through the shadow of Earth cast by the Sun, and is colored by dusky blue, purple, and crimson light as its normally…
The Moon is Surrounded by Neon
Finally, we have proof of the moon’s “noble” heritage! Measurements from NASA’s Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer, aka LADEE, have confirmed the long-suspected presence of neon in its exosphere (neon is one of the noble gases — see what I did there?) along with isotopes of argon and helium. The relative concentrations of each of these elements…
Cassini Bids Farewell to Dione with Some Fantastic Final Views
NASA’s venerable Cassini spacecraft may still have another two years left in its exploration of the Saturn system but on Monday, August 17, it had its final intimate visit with Dione, one of Saturn’s largest natural satellites at nearly 700 miles (1,126 km) across. On that day Cassini passed within 300 miles (480 km) of Dione at 2:33 p.m. EDT (18:33…
Today in 1966: Lunar Orbiter I Launched to Map our Moon
On August 10, 1966, NASA’s Lunar Orbiter I launched from Cape Canaveral aboard an Atlas-Agena D rocket, the flagship spacecraft of a program designed to map the Moon and investigate intended landing sites for the planned Apollo landings, including helping determine the risks from micrometeorite and radiation exposure. Over the course of the next twelve months and five…
Lights in the Dark 