What Would You Harvest On the Moon Unless Sowing the Human Footfalls There to Grow the Moon River Wider Than a Mile Someday: So The Blood Moon in the Total Lunar Eclipse Again

 

 

 

|| January 20: 2019 || ά. On the night between Sunday, January 20 and Monday, January 21, a good fraction of the world’s population will be able to look up see our bright Moon slowly turn dark orange. The phenomenon is known as a total lunar eclipse, which occurs when the Earth passes directly between the Moon and the Sun, hiding the light that illuminates the surface of our satellite.

As the Moon passes through the shadow of the Earth it appears in orange and red hues. This is because a small portion of sunlight is refracted by the Earth's atmosphere and mostly red light reaches the Moon. It is, also, why the total lunar eclipse is, often, called a ‘blood moon’. If, you live in Europe or in western Africa and want to watch the spectacle on Monday, it is recommended you get up early and allow plenty of time. The whole lunar eclipse will last about five hours and the total eclipse about one hour.

For the best possible view, choose a site, that offers an unobstructed view to the west and northwest. The phenomenon will, also, be visible from North and South America in the late hours of Sunday or early hours of Monday, depending on your location.

In central Europe, the eclipse begins around 03:36 CET on Monday morning but the initial passing into the light part of Earth’s shadow or penumbra, will be barely visible. The following times are valid for the Central European Time zone and will differ slightly depending on your location.

04:00 A slight darkening of the moon will be seen.

04:33 Partial lunar eclipse begins, the dark part of Earth’s shadow, or umbra, starts engulfing the Moon.

05:41 Total lunar eclipse begins: the Moon is completely within Earth’s shadow; the eclipse will last around and hour.

06:12 Totality: the peak moment of the eclipse

06:43 Total lunar eclipse ends

07:50 Partial eclipse ends.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission, the first crewed landing on the Moon. In collaboration with international partners, ESA is preparing to go forward to the Moon on several missions to be developed over the next few years.

ESA is teaming up with international partners to return humans to Earth’s natural satellite. After more than four decades, the Moon is again in the spotlight of space agencies worldwide as a destination for both robotic missions and human explorers.

Moving away from one-shot orbital missions, bold ambitions foresee humans exploring the polar regions hand-in-hand with robots, in international co-operation and commercial participation.:::ω.

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The Lunar Eclipse: July 27: 2018: The Blood Moon

|| July 30: 2018 || ά. This unusual view of the Moon was captured during Friday’s total lunar eclipse from ESA’s European Space Astronomy Centre, near Madrid in Spain, at 23:03 CEST. During a lunar eclipse the Earth moves between the Sun and the Moon, blocking the light, that would usually illuminate our orbiting neighbour’s surface. Instead, the reddish-orange-brown hue arises from refracted sunlight passing through the Earth’s atmosphere.

It is the same mechanism responsible for sunrises and sunsets. In fact, the red hue during a total lunar eclipse arises from the refracted light from all the sunrises and sunsets taking place at the same time around the world along the day-night boundary at that moment on Earth, projected on to the Moon’s surface.

If, you were lucky enough to see the event from a vantage point on the Moon’s surface, you’d see a red ring around Earth, glowing with the light of our planet’s sunrises and sunsets, quite a sight in store for future lunar explorers; although, they would have to face the rapid change in temperature as Earth’s shadow races across the surface!

The conditions in Earth’s atmosphere at the time of the eclipse, dust particles and clouds, for example, can have an effect on the shade of red. Although, not a scientific term, the term ‘blood moon’ is commonly used to describe the totally eclipsed red-coloured Moon.

Friday’s event was the longest eclipse of the 21st century, with totality, the time in which the Earth’s shadow completely engulfs the Moon’s surface, lasting for 103 minutes.

Missed this event? Lunar eclipses can occur up to five times a year, so there will be plenty more opportunities in the future. Furthermore, a solar eclipse always occurs about two weeks before or after a lunar eclipse. To see, if, you can view the partial solar eclipse coming up on 11 August 11, check this website https://www.timeanddate.com, which provides useful information on astronomical phenomena like this.

The unprocessed image was taken with a Canon EOS 550D attached to a 20 cm aperture Celestron Newtonian CG8, with an exposure time of one second:ISO 1600. :::ω.

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|| October 29: 2017 || ά. Looking up at the Moon at night, Earth’s closest neighbour appears in shades of gray and white; a dry desert in the vacuum of space, inactive and dead for billions of years. Like many things, though, with the Moon, there is so much more than what meets the eye. And, there's always going to be so much more; always, there's going to be much more unknown than known. The greater part of the Matter Universe, which is for all human purposes, 'infinite' because it is not infinite but finite, remains in the realm of 'not unfolded yet' so that it will take imsillions of trillions of billions of millions of mega-millennial-light-years to unfold: simply to become time into time-dust, falling onto and spreading into becoming space. A discarded snake-skin of the entire Matter Universe is what awaits its end.

But how long is this time: in human answers: we can not even bring ourselves to 'grasp' this long a time. And, therefore, there's always going to be much more in the unknown than known. So humanity can not and must stop and keep on learning......keep on learning.......keep on learning for humanity is still a crawling baby with less than two per cent of its genome expressed so far so that 98 per cent of the genome has not yet been expressed and come into playing their roles. And here, research completed by NASA Marshall Space Flight Centre Planetary Volcanologist Ms Debra Needham in Huntsville, Alabama and Planetary Scientist Mr David Kring at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, Texas, suggests that billions of years ago, the Moon, actually, had an atmosphere. The ancient lunar atmosphere was thicker than the atmosphere of Mars today and was likely capable of weathering rocks and producing windstorms. Perhaps, most importantly, it could be a source for some, if not all, of the water detected on the Moon.

“It just completely changes the way we think of the Moon.” said Ms Needham, in Marshall’s Science and Technology Office. “It becomes a much more dynamic planetary body to explore.” Ms Needham was expected to present the research at the annual Geological Society of America Conference in Seattle on October 22. The research paper, available online, will be published in the Nov. 15 issue of Earth and Planetary Science Letters.

Discovering the existence, thickness and composition of the atmosphere began with understanding how much lava erupted on the Moon 03.9 to one billion years ago, forming the lava plains we see as the dark areas on the surface of the Moon today. Ms Needham and Mr Kring then used lab analyses of lunar basalts, iron and magnesium-rich volcanic rocks, returned to Earth by the Apollo crews to estimate the amounts and composition of gases, also, called volatiles, released during those volcanic eruptions.

The short-lived atmosphere, estimated to have lasted approximately 70 million years, was comprised, primarily, of carbon monoxide, sulfur and water. As volcanic activity declined, the release of the gases, also, declined. What atmosphere existed was either lost to space or became part of the surface of the Moon.

The researchers discovered that so much water was released during the eruptions, potentially, three times the amount of water in the Chesapeake Bay, that if 0.1 percent of the erupted water migrated to the permanently shadowed regions on the Moon, it could account for all of the water detected there. “We’re suggesting that internally-sourced volatiles might be at least contributing factors to these potential in-situ resource utilisation deposits.” Ms Needham said.

Water is one of the keys to living off of the land in space, also, called in-situ resource utilisation:ISRU. Knowing where the water came from helps scientists and mission planners alike know if the resource is renewable. Ultimately, more research is needed to determine the exact sources.

The first indication of water on the Moon came in 1994, when NASA’s Clementine spacecraft detected potential signatures of water-ice in the lunar poles. In 1998, NASA’s Lunar Prospector mission detected enhanced hydrogen signatures but could not definitely associate them to water. Ten years later, NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and its partner spacecraft, the Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite:LCROSS, definitively confirmed the presence of water on the Moon.

That same year, in 2008, volcanic glass beads brought back from the Moon by the Apollo 15 and 17 crews were discovered to contain volatiles, including, water, leading to the research, that indicates the Moon once had a significant atmosphere and was once much different than what we see today.

Casting one’s eyes at the Moon or viewing it through a telescope, the surface of the Moon today gives but a glimpse into its dynamic and complex history. Recent findings that propose Earth’s neighbour once had an atmosphere comparable to Mars’ continue to unravel the lunar past, while prompting scientists and explorers to ask more questions about Earth’s mysterious companion in the solar system.

: Editor: William Bryan: NASA: ω.

Image: Modified from a NASA image

|| October 20: 2017 || ά. The European Space Agency:ESA and the Canadian Space Agency are probing how to explore the Moon with a robot rover. Their teams of researchers are investigating the challenges of remotely operating a rover in a representative lunar scenario with teams, based in several locations during the period between October 12 and 20.

The series of Multi-purpose End To End Robotic Operations Network:Meteron experiments is developing the skills, concepts and technologies for future exploration of the Solar System. The many challenges make it likely that machines will be used before and:or together with humans. The current experiment is using Canada’s Juno rover in a quarry in St Alphonse de Granby, Quebec, which has been selected because of its lunar-like landscape.

Engineers at ESA’s mission control in Darmstadt, Germany and the Canadian Space Agency are taking turns at controlling the vehicle. And soon, the near future, this will be done in reality on the lunar surface. ω.

Image: ESA

|| October 05: 2017 || ά. Russia Today's series of panoramic videos filmed for the Space 360 project will be part of the training for Russian cosmonauts, including, for future missions to the moon. Head of Energia Rocket and Space Corporation’s flight-test division Mr Mark Serov made the announcement during the SPACEWALK 360 event, RT’s special presentation of the world’s first ever 360-degree footage of a spacewalk, filmed in collaboration with Roscosmos State Corporation and RSC Energia.

“We will be using this technology to train International Space Station:ISS teams, and also, crews for future moon missions. Our colleagues can use 360 videos to conduct tests. It is one thing to show photos or videos shot in the traditional format, but with panoramic videos, you can take the experience to the next level of immersion. It is especially valuable for cosmonauts preparing to work in space.” Mr Mark Serov said during the SPACEWALK 360 presentation at the Russian Museum of Cosmonautics.

“RT’s footage is very good. We need to have more of these videos, because we need to get as much information as we can. Right now, it is just a drop in the ocean; we need to film more.” Mr Serov said. The RT SPACEWALK 360 presentation took place at the Museum of Cosmonautics on October 03, ahead of the 60th anniversary of the launch of the first artificial Earth satellite Sputnik one. During a video conference with the ISS, Russian cosmonaut Mr Sergey Ryazansky shared his experience with the filming process, “I think that 360 videos are a great technology, a wonderful idea. It is exciting that we, Russians, were the first ones to test it during a spacewalk.”

Roscosmos Executive Director of Piloted Spaceflights Mr Sergei Krikalev, as well as, pilot-cosmonaut and narrator of the Space 360 project, Mr Andrei Borisenko, also, spoke at the presentation.

Back in November 2016, RT became the first media outlet in history to send viewers to space, providing unparalleled panoramic images of Earth as seen from aboard the ISS with Mashable commenting that the video 'gets you as close as possible to the experience of actually being aboard the ISS and looking down on our home planet'.

The video received enthusiasm and praise not just from internet users, but also from former NASA astronauts and well-known public figures. Former astronauts Mr Terry Virts and Mr Clayton Anderson said that the RT360 video was 'one of the very best'  and American director Mr Oliver Stone compared it to a videogame. ω.