A hot spot on the far side of the Moon has turned out to be a small volcanic area created by the upwelling of magma. Because of the volcanic areas location and the composition of the lava being different to normal it gives clues to the moon’s thermal history. The hotspot is actually a concentration [...]
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A New Map of the Roughness and Smoothness of the Moon Created
Planetary scientists use the look of planets and moons to find out information about their past. New maps of the moon have been put together that reveal the slopes and roughness of the moon’s surface. These maps are based on data which has been collected by the lunar orbiter laser altimeter on NASA’s lunar reconnaissance [...]
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Far Side of the Moon Imaged by the LRO
The moons far side has been imaged in extreme detail by the lunar reconnaissance orbiter (LRO). A mosaic is being made of the moon by the LRO and this image is one of many building up into a map providing a global view of the moon to a resolution of 100 m per pixel. (Click on [...]
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New Study Shows That Moon Has an Interior like the Earth’s
The moon is more interesting than it looks. The interior could hold clues about our distant past. NASA researchers have found from analysing old data in new ways that the moon has a core. This has been theorised for some time but never proved. These findings were published on January 6 in science and shows [...]
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China and Russia Will Go Ahead with a Mission to Explore Mars This Year
In October this year China is expected to launch its first Mars probe carrying Russia’s Phobos Explorer. It was expected to launch in 2010 but never made it and has been delayed for the last two years. Previous reports say that the orbiter’s main mission is to try and find out where the water, that [...]
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Eclipse changes The Moon’s Colour
An Eclipse seen in America and Europe on Tuesday changed the moon’s colour from pink to blood red. This came from the sun, Earth and the moon aligning. The moon swung into the shadow of the Earth to cause these effects. Even though the moon was in the shadow of the Earth the Moon didn’t [...]
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How Did the Earth Get It’s Water?
How did the Earth come to possess water? Did some alien ship have too much and dump it or is there some simpler explanation? Through a process that lasted millions of years the Earth was made from a cloud of dust and gas. At the later stages of formation the Earth was an extremely hot [...]
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Is Human Colonisation of Europa Possible?
Europa is a fascinating place. Once it was believed that Jupiter’s moons were just lumps of ice and rock. But missions to Jupiter showed us that there is more to Jupiter’s moons than we thought. This moon has become much more interesting the more it is explored. The furthest we have got nowadays is to [...]
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Where Should We Look for Alien Artefacts?
There is a problem with our approach at the moment when looking for alien civilisations. SETI looks for signals that are sent by the electromagnetic spectrum and their are a lot of frequencies to search. If you pair this with the size of the universe you can see how SETI is really looking for a [...]
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Good Evidence for Life on Saturn’s Moon Titan
The Cassini spacecraft has noticed on Titan, Saturn’s moon, that hydrogen molecules flow down through the atmosphere and disappear when they reach the surface (Icarus Journal). Also the hydrocarbons on the surface of Titan have been mapped and show that there is a lack of acetylne (Journal of geophysical research). The lack of acetylne could [...]
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Japanese Corporation Aims to Build a Solar Ring on the Moon
The world’s energy needs are coming to a crisis point but technology could solve this in a Japanese plan to put solar cells around the moon’s equator. That’s 11,000 km of solar cells twinkling on the moon. The electricity from the solar cells would be converted to microwaves and lasers would beam the power to [...]
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A Robotic Japanese Lunar Base Is Planned for 2020
Japan (a government panel of Waseda University) has recently announced that it is going to send robots to the moon to create a moon base. This obviously has come after America announces that it is not going to bother with the moon just yet and I expect that Japan will take full advantage of the [...]
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Evidence Builds up for Life in Europa’s Ocean
Europa is one of my favourite moons around Jupiter as it keeps throwing up little titbits of what could be underneath that icy surface. Underneath the thin layer of ice that encompasses Europa there is speculated to be a 100 km deep ocean. This would be ice if it wasn’t for the tidal forces of [...]
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Sign up to Walk on the Moon.
Ever fancied walking on the moon? A new site called Moon zoo can almost get you there (well in mind if not body). The lunar reconnaissance orbiter has taken many photos of the moon and this site presents them in such a way that it is easy to look around and take in the panorama. [...]
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The Orion Capsule Takes One Extremely Small Baby Step
“One giant leap for mankind” doesn’t really come to mind after watching the Orion capsule launch. The Orion capsule is the leftover from the mission to the moon that Obama cancelled. Recently they tried out the escape mechanism from the Orion capsule which was to protect the astronauts just in case of fire or other [...]
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Take a trip to Titan with Cassini Huygens
The solar system may seem a barren place when it comes to life or anything similar. Obviously we are here on our lovely planet so that statement is not true. The other planets don’t seem likely to harbour life except perhaps Mars, but the life there if there is any, is not obvious as we [...]
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Best of the Week Podcast- A Man, A Planet and Loads of Controversy
ENCORE While the Kepler spacecraft hunts for habitable planets beyond the solar system, we’ve let one of our own planets slip away! Find out why Pluto’s demotion to dwarf status created a public uproar as astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson reads us his hate mail. From third-graders! Also, how we might find Earth-like planets… the possibility [...]
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All About Moonbases
A moon base sounds like an exotic idea but is well within our reach. There were people around, I expect when the idea of a space station around the earth was thought of, years ago, that were extremely sceptical. The international space station now exists orbiting the Earth and has got bigger and bigger by [...]
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Solar Power Beamed To Earth From Space?
There are many renewable, green sources of energy one of them being solar power. This can be taken 1 step further by having the solar panels put into space. Obviously that requires a little more, OK a lot more effort than the words imply but would be worth it. There are benefits to outsourcing solar [...]
