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Beresheet (which means “Genesis” in Hebrew), Israel’s first Moon mission spacecraft has sent an amazing selfie with Earth in the background today. In the photo, a plaque on the side of moon lander features the flag of Israel and phrases “Am Yisrael Chai” (which means roughly “The Jewish nation lives” or “the people of Israel …
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This chart, prepared by NASA illustrates comparisons among the driving distances by various wheeled vehicles on the surface of the planetary bodies other than Earth (as of February 13, 2019, only the Moon and Mars). Opportunity rover, which declared dead after record-breaking 15-years on the Martian surface also holds the off-Earth roving distance record after …
Continue reading “Driving Distances on Mars and the Moon [Out-of-This-World-Records]”
Exciting new images from NASA’s robotic spacecraft Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) which is orbiting the Moon since 2009. China’s lunar lander Chang’e 4 which achieved the first soft landing on the far side of the Moon and its surroundings in the Von Kármán crater can be seen in the images.
An amazing NASA photo: the crescent Earth rises above the lunar horizon in this spectacular photograph taken from the Apollo 17 spacecraft in lunar orbit during the final lunar landing mission in the Apollo program.
According to research published in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters, Earth’s oldest rock (which is 4.1 billion years old) has been found in an Apollo 14 sample from the Moon. If confirmed, it’s an amazing discovery.
On January 10, 2019, the China National Space Agency unveiled the panoramic image of the far side of the Moon taken by the Chang’e 4 Lunar Lander.
Scientists from the China National Space Administration (CNSA) have confirmed that the seedlings taken to the far side of the moon with Chang’e 4 lunar lander have started sprouting. Or to put it another way: this is the first time something has grown on an astronomical body outside of the Earth! Now we have “moon …
Continue reading “Moon Plants: Another historic first by China’s Lunar Lander”
Margaret Hamilton is not only one of the first software developers, but she also literally created the term “Software Engineering” to describe her work. The code she wrote successfully put humans on the moon for the first time.
Today, on January 3, 2019, China’s lunar lander and rover Chang’e 4 achieved the first soft landing on the far side of the Moon in the history of humanity’s space exploration. It’s a space feat no nation or space agency (including NASA) has accomplished until now.
Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were the first people to walk on the moon. After more than 21 1⁄2 hours on the lunar surface, in addition to the scientific instruments, they left behind an Apollo 1 mission patch (see notes 1) and a memorial bag containing a gold replica of an olive branch as …
