Items tagged with moon
Early last year, an obsolete part of a Chinese space rocket crashed into the lunar surface, leaving behind two visible craters. A team of researchers from the University of Arizona found definitive proof it caused the duo of craters and that it also had an undisclosed payload.
The event was unique in that most...
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Jupiter will accompany this weekend's Hunter's Moon as the duo parade across the night sky together. The Hunter's Moon gets its name from the Algonquin Native American tribe and was used to remind native American cultures that it was time to hunt and store up meat for the winter.
The October Hunter's Moon might...
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The sky over North, Central, and South America will feature a celestial delight later today, as an annular solar eclipse creates a "ring of fire." An annular solar eclipse differs from a total eclipse in that the moon is at the farthest point in its orbital path from Earth, keeping it from being able to completely...
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October is chock full of amazing celestial events, including a cool Hunter's Moon and a wild "ring of fire" eclipse. The Moon, planets, and stars will also dance with one another across the October night skies.
Sky watchers do not have to wait to see a show in the cooler night sky, as the Moon will rise a couple of...
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Later this week, sky watchers will be privy to the last supermoon of 2023 and its being a Harvest Moon. The Harvest Moon will be accompanied by two planets shining brightly in the night sky, Saturn and Jupiter.
A Harvest Moon denotes the time of year when the full moon has unique characteristics. One of those is...
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India's Chandrayaan-3 Moon lander has yet to respond to its wake-up call from its location in the lunar south pole. However, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) says the failure to answer is "not the end of the story for Chandrayaan-3 mission."
Chandrayaan-3 launched on July 14, 2023, from the Satish...
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NASA utilized cameras on two separate lunar orbiters to produce a stunning image of the Moon's darkened South Pole region. The mosaic was created using imagery from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LROC) and NASA's ShadowCam onboard the Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (KPLO).
As NASA prepares to send humans back...
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New research has confirmed that Earth's Moon experiences tiny "moonquakes" like clockwork every morning and afternoon, while also uncovering further details about the lunar seismic events. The instruments that were used to detect the signals studied were four geophones placed near the landing site of Apollo...
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The Moon will be at its brightest and fullest as it passes by the ringed planet Saturn in the night sky this week. This is the second full Moon of August, making it the year's only Super Blue Moon.
Saturn comes to opposition of Earth's Moon nearly every year. While it takes one Earth year for our home planet to...
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The second full Moon of August will be a Supermoon as well as a Blue Moon all wrapped into one. Along with the incredible Supermoon, Saturn will be its closest and brightest for the year.
The second full moon in a single month is classified as a Blue Moon, according to the definition set by Sky and Telescope...
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Russia's attempt to land a spacecraft on the surface of the Moon for the first time in decades ended abruptly as the spacecraft crashed into the lunar surface. The country's last successful landing on the Moon was in 1976 with the Soviet Union's Luna 24 mission.
The Luna 25 lunar lander launched onboard a Soyuz 2.1...
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The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) shared some spectacular images from its Chandrayann-3 mission, showcasing the monumental moment in India's space history. This marks the country's third lunar exploration mission which will also include a lunar landing of a rover.
Chandrayann-3 launched on July 14...
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NASA is preparing to send a trio of miniature rovers to the Moon in order to test how well they can cooperate with one another with little to no direct input from mission controllers back on Earth. The Cooperative Autonomous Distributed Robotic Exploration (CADRE) program looks to make future missions to the moon more...
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NASA has decided to fund 11 companies to develop technologies that could help support the long-term exploration of the Moon and beyond. The companies include Blue Origin, tasked with developing in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) based power on the Moon.
As NASA prepares for its Artemis II mission that will send...
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NASA has begun qualification testing on what it calls "cutting-edge" solar electric propulsion (SEP) thrusters. The innovative thrusters will be showcased on the Gateway space station that will orbit the Moon and provide support for NASA's Artemis campaign.
NASA is preparing for the second Artemis launch, which...
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NASA's James Space Webb Telescope (JWST) continues to dazzle with yet another stunning image of Saturn's spectacular rings. The image was captured by Webb on June 25, 2023, and was part of the observatory's first near-infrared observations of the mammoth-ringed planet.
JWST has been utilized to capture images of...
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As NASA begins to send humans farther into space for extended periods of time, the space agency is researching new ways to provide basic needs for its crew members without any resupply missions from Earth. Part of the research being conducted on the International Space Station (ISS) includes recycling consumables such...
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Researchers have discovered that Enceladus's ocean should contain phosphorus, one of the basic elements for terrestrial life. The scientists used geochemical modeling to predict just how much phosphorous could be present in the ocean of Saturn's moon Enceladus.
Observations by the Cassini spacecraft have already...
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NASA believes there is a very good chance of finding signs of life once it lands back on the Moon, beginning with its Artemis III mission. Current research by the space agency suggests that the most likely candidate for the existence of microbes on the moon to be from humans.
As NASA prepares for its upcoming...
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A newly discovered asteroid has been detected and is said to be a quasi-moon, or fake moon, of Earth. The fake moon is actually asteroid 2023 FW13 and orbits the Sun in sync with Earth. Its orbit extends so far that "it sweeps out halfway to Mars and in halfway to Venus," according to a recent tweet from Sky and...
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NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has captured data regarding a water vapor plume from Saturn's moon Enceladus, which spans an incredible 6,000 miles. The detection of an immense water emission of this nature is the first seen over such a far-reaching distance. It also gives scientists an idea of how an emission like...
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NASA has announced that Blue Origin will be developing the human landing system for the agency's Artemis V mission to the Moon. The aerospace and defense technology company owned by Jeff Bezos will design, develop, test, and verify its moon lander to meet NASA's human landing system requirements for multiple...
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