Tag: Moon
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Weekly Science Picks
It is with a heavy heart that I must say, this is my final set of Weekly Science Picks here on Australian Science. In fact, it’s to be the final set of Weekly Science Picks. Unfortunately, running a site like this one is a costly affair, and it’s been an honour to be a writer…
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Pluto’s new moons named: Spock still homeless
The dwarf planet, Pluto, can still generate plenty of public interest – if the naming of its two recently discovered moons is anything to go by. After their discovery, the leader of the research team, Mark Showalter, called for a public vote to suggest names for the two objects. The on-line contest, aptly named ‘Pluto…
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Giant Impact: making the moon
It began… where it always begins — out there — in the vastness of space. What would it look like, that void of empty nothingness? So early on in the sound of creation, indescribable things all around. Not yet planets, not yet moons. Not yet defined. A titanic mass of rock. Different. Ugly and melancholic.…
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Neil Armstrong’s speech in Sydney 24 August 2011
UPDATE: Regrettably, the CPA engaged lawyers to threaten me with everything they could think of if I didn’t pull the recording (below). So pull it I have. Please feel free to pass on any feelings about this to them. At least for the time it was available, about 500 people got to hear the great man’s words. All…
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The whole Earth-side of the Moon should be protected forever
Earlier this year, the New York Times had an interesting piece about museums seeking to protect small areas of the Moon around the Apollo landing sites. And a good thing too: “…the next generation of people visiting the moon might carelessly obliterate the site of one of humanity’s greatest accomplishments.” More recently, NASA has released draft guidelines around protecting…
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Who found the water on the Moon?
At just over two tonnes, the second stage of an Atlas V rocket, makes for an unusual ‘kinetic probe’. Nonetheless on October 9, 2009 NASA deliberately impacted a spent Centaur rocket into the lunar south polar crater Cabeus. The target area was a permanently shadowed region within this crater. The impact, not surprisingly, ejected a…