Archives for the 'moon' Category
Earth and Luna
Published on 12 Mar 2008 at 7:02 pm.
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NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) left Earth August 12, 2005. It arrived at Mars about two years ago, March 10, 2006, joining a flotilla of other spacecraft studying the red planet. Last October, the MRO turned its HiRISE camera towards home, capturing the image above. The HiRISE camera (High Resolution Imaging Science […]
South Pole-Aitken Basin
Published on 5 Feb 2008 at 3:23 pm.
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The Caloris Basin on Mercury that I wrote about a few days ago is pretty spectacular. It is huge. But, Hellas Planitia, which I wrote about yesterday, is bigger. But, bigger still is the South Pole-Aitken Basin on our own Moon. This monstrous impact basin is 2500 kilometers across, and up […]
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Big tides
Published on 24 Nov 2007 at 5:53 pm.
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Today is Full Moon. This Full Moon also falls on the same day that the Moon reaches perigee (the closest point in its elliptical orbit to the Earth). That means high tides. I’ve blogged about tides twice before: here and here. You can read those postings to find more about […]
Earth-Set
Published on 14 Nov 2007 at 10:17 pm.
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The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has released some really nice images collected by their Kaguya (SELENE) spacecraft that has been orbiting the Moon for about the past month. These images were taken in high definition, so they are among the best such pictures ever taken. There is also a movie of the event.
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Crowded Moon?
Published on 24 Oct 2007 at 12:03 am.
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Today China’s Chang’e spacecraft was launched on its way to the Moon. When Chang’e arrives it will be joining Japan’s Kaguya (SELENE) which is already in orbit around the Moon. In addition to cameras, Kaguya sports a battery of spectrometers and radar instruments. The Kaguya spacecraft has also deployed two sub-satellites […]
The International Lunar Decade
Published on 15 Sep 2007 at 4:56 pm.
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In 1976, the Soviet Union launched Luna 24 to the Moon. That concluded about a decade and a half of extensive lunar missions by both the Soviets and the United States of America. Then, apparently space agencies lost interest in sending spacecraft to the Moon. It wasn’t until 1990 that another spacecraft […]
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Lunar Eclipse, August 28
Published on 26 Aug 2007 at 1:09 am.
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Filed under astronomy, moon, observing.
The annual email urban legend about Mars has been making its way around the internet again. And, of course, as I said a few weeks ago, it is still wrong. But, there is going to be something interesting going on Monday night, and that is that the Moon is about to be full. […]
