moon tagged posts

Charles Lue holds a lunar globe showing the reflection of solar wind from magnetic fields of the lunar crust. The strongest reflection takes place in the areas marked in red on the lunar globe. Montage: photo Hans Huybrighs. Credit: Charles Lue

The solar wind is reflected from the surface and crustal magnetic fields of the moon which has effects on for instance lunar water levels. The Swedish space instrument SARA has measured a strong and varied interaction between the Moon and solar wind (continuous flow of plasma from the Sun which affects the planets and contributes to aurora on Earth). The lunar atmosphere, on the other hand, is too thin to show the same phenomenon and the Moon also lacks a global magnetic field to regulate the solar wind...

During Exploration Mission-1, Orion will venture thousands of miles beyond the moon during an approximately three week mission. Credits: NASA

Here are the ins and outs of NASA’s First Launch of SLS and Orion. NASA is building Orion spacecraft, Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and the ground systems needed to send astronauts into deep space and core capabilities needed to enable the journey to Mars.

Orion’s first flight atop the SLS will not have humans aboard, but it paves the way for future missions with astronauts. During this flight, Exploration Mission-1 (EM-1), the spacecraft will travel thousands of miles beyond the moon over 3 wks. It will launch on the most powerful rocket in the world and fly farther than any spacecraft built for humans has ever flown...

This is the temperature of the surface around the southern pole of the moon according to LRO data. Credit: NASA

Water reserves found on the moon are the result of asteroids acting as ‘delivery vehicles’ and not of falling comets as was previously thought. Using computer simulation, scientists have discovered that a large asteroid can deliver more water to the lunar surface than the cumulative fall of comets over a billion year period.

At the beginning of the space age, during the days of the Apollo program, scientists believed the moon to be completely dry. At these earliest stages in satellite evolution, the absence of an atmosphere and the influence of solar radiation were thought enough to evaporate all volatile substances into space...

Melt inclusions are tiny dots of magma frozen within olivine crystals. The crystals lock in volatile elements that may have otherwise escaped from the magma. Researchers have shown that melt inclusions within volcanic glasses from the Moon contain carbon. They conclude that gas-phase carbon likely drive the “fire fountain” eruptions the produced the glass. Credit: Saal Lab / Brow University

Scientists have found traces of carbon in volcanic glass collected from the Apollo missions to the Moon. The finding may not only explain the driving force behind ancient ‘fire fountain’ eruptions on the Moon but also suggest that some volatile elements on the Moon and Earth have a common origin.

Fire fountains, a type of eruption that occurs frequently in Hawaii, require the presence of volatiles mixed...