Is there water on the moon?

     

        On Friday, October 9th NASA launched two spacecrafts to crash into a crater on the moon in search of water.  There were two steps involved in this process. First, the two ton rocket crashed into a dark and cold crater near the moons south pole.  The second spacecraft followed the rocket and tried to collect data that flew up from the debris of the crash to detect if there was water in the moon.  The trailing craft also recorded a video of the explosion.  Although the explosion did not create a huge splash of water NASA was able to collect the data they needed.  Overall, it is not yet definite if the moon contains ice but we are getting closer and closer to the answer everyday.

          This article is very appealing because it's interesting that there could be stuff out there that we would never know about.  I also wonder if life could survive on the moon.  Last year in class we did many things relating to space such as recording the moon phase each day (full, Crescent).


Video- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hteb-7iejA&feature=fvw 
MS

Possible Signs of Water on the Moon

On Thursday September 17, 2009, pictures from NASA's new moon orbiter, LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter), successfully completed the testing and calibrating part of its mission and moved on to mapping the orbit of the moon. The LRO's materials made measurements of space radiation in the lunar environment and found areas of possible signatures of water. The LRO's LEND (Lunar Exploration Neutron Detector) showed shadowed regions that could potentially be the place of water ice and hydrogen. LEND needs a decrease of neutron radiation from the lunar surface to tell whether or not there is water or hydrogen. A big finding from it is that the hydrogen isn't only in one spot, and the team members on this discovery want to know more about it.

This spacecraft launched on June 18, 2009 and should keep working for a year. As of right now it is in good shape. The main goal of this exploration was to find landing spots for astronauts to land in the future, and to make a map of the moons surface, temperature extremes, and radiation environment. Now, it will also be looking for water ice in the permanently shadowed craters of the moon's south pole. If they find water ice, it will be good for the astronauts because they could melt it for water, and they could extract the hydrogen and use it for fuel. However, some of the maps show steep crater slopes that would be difficult for a truck or car to drive over, so that could create a set back for getting the water ice in the craters. On September 9th the LRO will land on the moon's south pole to get debris samples that will be used for future results.

This article is interesting because if there is water found on the moon, it is a huge discovery for future explorations to the moon. If there is water, it could be very useful to the mission and to the astronauts because having water on the moon would mean that the astronauts wouldn't need to bring it with them, so then they would have room for something else that they might need.

~KM
source
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32903691/ns/technology_and_science-space

Mars Hoax

A friend sent me a powerpoint in an email that said that on August 27  "Mars would look as large as the full moon to the naked eye"

Ok that seems exciting but not too likely so lets inhale deeply and remember and think...

In 2003 Mars did make a very close approach to Earth, well if you consider 35,000,000 miles close.  The red planet was 34,647,420 miles (55,757,930 km) from Earth in the summer of 2003. (NASA) Mars's orbit  gets close to Earth's orbit every two years or so and even closer to Earth every 15 or 17 years.   In 2003 the two planets were a lot closer than usual so astronomers used that as an excuse for a bunch of huge star parties and a lot of shameless self promotion.  Hey why not!

Like many other things, a little cutting and pasting and anyone with an email account can tell all of their friends about "the dramatic close approach that hasn't happened for 60,000 years and won't be seen again in our lifetimes"  between these two planets.

Eventually the year gets cut off  and now this email resurfaces every summer.  Of course it isn't correct anymore.  Want to know more ? (for my students the correct answer is "yes".  The rest of you are on your own.)

Here is an article posted by NASA in 2003 describing the original event and another still online in the BBC archive.

I HIGHLY recommend this animation by Randy Russell showing Mars and Earth orbits. 

Play it backwards for about a minute to see the close approach (50 million  Km is about 30 million miles) You can play it forward and see when the next close approach will be.  (Try for 2017 or 2020.)

Here is a bloggers view of the current incarnation of this message and a Google search of "Mars approach" gets many responses like this yahoo answer.

The Adler Planetarium in Chicago posted a PDF titled Mars Hoax because they get so many inquiries every summer.  A blog post from 2007 makes us realize that this email misinformation is a recurring phenomenon. 

So that's the story on Mars but don't despair  the moons of Jupiter will be a glorious sight this summer.  Tonight, May 23, 2009 Jupiter will rise about 2 AM but by August 1 Jupiter will rise a little east of South abut 8 PM and continue across the southerrn sky for most of the night.  You can easily see Jupiter's disc and four of its moons with a pair of good binoculars or a small telescope.

Sky and Telescopes posted a  Javascript utility identifying the moons that Galileo saw 400 years ago.  Writing about his observations got him in some trouble but that's another story...

be good,

Mr. Hazen