You’ve undoubtedly heard many times over the historic words uttered by Neil Armstrong when the Apollo 11 LM Eagle touched down in the Sea of Tranquility on July 20, 1969 and when he stepped off the ladder onto the Moon’s dusty, desolate surface later that same day, but the success of the Apollo 11 mission…
Tag: research
Our Moon Could Be Conveniently Full of Water
It’s been known for a while (especially since the 2009 LCROSS impact experiment) that there is water on the Moon. But so far the largest volume has been found as ice inside the shadowed walls of craters on the Moon’s south pole, likely originating from ancient comet impacts. Now, using data collected by India’s Chandrayaan-1 lunar…
Hubble Detects Dusty Shadows Hinting at a Hidden Exoplanet
When searching nearby stars for exoplanets, astronomers typically either look for the dimming of the stars’ light as planets pass in front of them or try to see if the stars themselves exhibit a slight wobble due to the gravitational tug of orbiting worlds. But recently scientists using the Hubble Space Telescope have found a curious…
Solar Storms Set Off Tiny Explosions In Shadowed Lunar Soil
Powerful solar storms can charge up the soil in frigid, permanently shadowed regions near the lunar poles, and may possibly produce “sparks” that could vaporize and melt the soil—perhaps as much as meteoroid impacts, according to new NASA-funded research. Read the rest of this article from NASA here: Solar Storms Could Spark Lunar Soil
The Moon’s Dark Seas Are Scars From Ancient Strikes—Even Bigger Than We Thought
When you look up at a full or full-ish Moon you can’t help but notice the large dark spots that mark its Earth-facing side. These form the face of what many call the “Man in the Moon” (or the body of a Moon rabbit, to others) and are individually called mare (“MAR-ay”) which is the Latin word…
