moon
SPACE: The Seas of Titan
The Saturn system may be the most beautiful in the solar system. As well as its spectacular rings, the Saturn system features more than 50 named moons and dozens of smaller moonlets. The largest of Saturn’s moons, Titan, is larger than the planet Mercury. It has a dense atmosphere of mainly nitrogen and is the only place in the solar system, apart from earth, with seas of liquid at the surface. The seas of Titan are very different from oceans on earth. Instead of water, they are comprised of the hydrocarbons methane and ethane, which are kept liquid by the … Read more
SPACE: How Small We Are
Here’s a new perspective on your home planet, helpfully provided by a NASA asteroid-sampling probe. Earth and the moon are two bright dots floating in an immense black void in the new view, which was captured by the space agency’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft on Jan. 17 from a distance of 39.5 million miles (63.6 million kilometers). By Mike Wall – Full Story at Live Science
Where No Gay Has Gone Before: Back to the Moon?
How many of you have wanted to go to the moon? Everybody? Well, we’re all nerds here so I’m not surprised. What is a surprise is NASA’s announcement that there is the possibility of astronauts returning to the moon as early as next year. 2018 is the fiftieth anniversary year of Apollo 8, which was the first spacecraft to reach and orbit our natural satellite. Commander Frank Borman, James Lovell and William Anders left Earth’s orbit, circled the moon a few times and returned home safely. Acting NASA administrator Robert Lightfoot said last month he wants to fast-track the heavy-lift … Read more
SPACE: Fly Me to the Moon
Well, here’s a bit of space news we weren’t expecting: Today, future Martian overlord and SpaceX founder Elon Musk announced that in 2018, the company will fly two private citizens around the Moon in its Dragon 2 spacecraft, carried by its extremely powerful Falcon Heavy rocket. While the voyagers’ names have not been disclosed, according to SpaceX, a “significant deposit” has already been made. “This is a really thing that’s happened,” Elon Musk told reporters at a press conference. “We’ve been approached to do a crewed mission beyond the Moon…[and these passengers] are very serious about it. We plan to … Read more
SPACE: Cosmic Triple Treat Tomorrow Night
Comet Turn your eyes to the sky this Friday night and prepare for a series of spectacular celestial sights. A penumbral lunar eclipse, a full moon and a comet will all be visible from across North America ― weather permitting. The full “Snow Moon,” so-called because February is usually the snowiest month in the U.S., is set to appear slightly darker than usual as it crosses through a peripheral part of the Earth’s shadow. By Lee Moran – Full Story at The Huffington Post
SPACE: New Image of Tethys, Saturn’s “Death Star”
NASA says it resembles an eyeball. But it’s hard to look at Tethys, one of the moons of Saturn, and not see the Death Star, especially in the image just released by the space agency: That distinctive mark is the Odysseus crater and its surrounding peaks. NASA said: “Like any solar system moon, Tethys (660 miles or 1,062 kilometers across) has suffered many impacts. These impacts are a prime shaper of the appearance of a moon’s surface, especially when the moon has no active geological processes. In this case, a large impact not only created a crater known as Odysseus, … Read more
News: NASA Releases Vivid New Image of ‘Earthrise’ Over the Moon’s Surface
NASA has released a gorgeous new high-res image of the Earth rising beyond the Moon’s horizon, shot by the Lunar Reconnaisance Orbiter. Said Noah Petro, Deputy Project Scientist for LRO at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland”The image is simply stunning. The image of the Earth evokes the famous ‘Blue Marble’ image taken by Astronaut Harrison Schmitt during Apollo 17, 43 years ago, which also showed Africa prominently in the picture.” Originally posted on Towleroad
News: NASA Discovers Global Underground Ocean on Saturn’s Moon Enceladus
Planning a sea-faring vacation to escape from the rest of the world? Don’t discount Saturn’s moon Enceladus, as NASA has just released new research that indicates a global ocean lies underneath its icy surface. Using research from the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft that is scheduled to make a flyby of Enceladus on October 28, NASA was able to detect a slight wobble on the moon that researchers say can only be accounted for by a underground ocean. “This was a hard problem that required years of observations, and calculations involving a diverse collection of disciplines, but we are confident we finally got … Read more