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 |
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|| 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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Readmore || 210119 || Up ||
The Lunar Eclipse: July
27: 2018: The Blood Moon |
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|| 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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Readmore || ‽: 310718 || Up
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The Lunasphere: There Once Was |
|| 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
Whatever Your Field of Work and Wherever in the World
You are, Please, Make a Choice to Do All You Can to Seek and Demand the End of
Death Penalty For It is Your Business What is Done in Your Name. The Law That
Makes Humans Take Part in Taking Human Lives and That Permits and Kills Human
Lives is No Law. It is the Rule of the Jungle Where Law Does Not Exist.
The Humanion
Simulating Lunar Surface Operations on Earth |
|| 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
Whatever Your Field of Work and Wherever in the World
You are, Please, Make a Choice to Do All You Can to Seek and Demand the End of
Death Penalty For It is Your Business What is Done in Your Name. The Law That
Makes Humans Take Part in Taking Human Lives and That Permits and Kills Human
Lives is No Law. It is the Rule of the Jungle Where Law Does Not Exist.
The Humanion
Russia Today's Panoramic Videos From Space are to Be Used in Training
Cosmonauts for the Likely Future Lunar Mission |
|| 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.
Whatever Your Field of Work and Wherever in the World
You are, Please, Make a Choice to Do All You Can to Seek and Demand the End of
Death Penalty For It is Your Business What is Done in Your Name. The Law That
Makes Humans Take Part in Taking Human Lives and That Permits and Kills Human
Lives is No Law. It is the Rule of the Jungle Where Law Does Not Exist.
The Humanion