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 final lunar landing mission in the Apollo program.
Continue reading The crescent Earth rises above the lunar horizonTag Archives: Moon
Watch: The shadow of the Moon during a solar eclipse
This… is… amazing!
Astrophotographer Martin Junius recorded this stunning video of the total solar eclipse on March 20, 2015, during the E-Flight AB 1000. In the video, you can see the shadow of the moon moving across the clouds below. The plane was 35,000 feet (10,600 meters) above the Northern Atlantic / Norwegian Sea when the video was recorded.
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Earth without Moon – what would it be like?
The Moon is the Earth’s only natural satellite. It is also the fifth-largest natural satellite in the Solar System and the largest among planetary satellites relative to the size of the planet that it orbits. It formed about 4.51 billion years ago from the debris left over after a giant impact between Earth and a Mars-sized body called Theia (this is known as the Giant Impact Hypothesis and is the most widely accepted explanation of the formation of the Moon). This impact happened not long after the Earth has been formed. But, what if that giant impact never happened? What would the Earth without Moon be like?
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Earth’s oldest rock has been found… on the Moon!
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.
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Dinosaurs were already doomed as the frequency of Asteroid Impacts increased 290 million years ago
By studying lunar craters, scientists have discovered that the asteroid impacts became more frequent about 290 million years ago. So was just a matter of time for dinosaurs to becoming extinct.
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Speed of Light – See how torturously slow it is
The speed of light is the Universal speed limit – nothing can travel faster than light. In the vacuum (commonly denoted c), its exact value is 299,792,458 meters per second (around 186,000 miles per second). In other words, if you could travel at the speed of light, you could go around the Earth 7.5 times in one second.
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Panorama of the far side of the Moon by the Chinese Lunar Lander
On January 10, 2019, the China National Space Agency unveiled the panoramic image of the far side of the Moon taken by the
Moon Plants: Another historic first by China’s Lunar Lander
Scientists from the China National Space Administration (CNSA) has confirmed that the seedlings taken to the far side of the moon with
Margaret Hamilton – her code got humans on the moon
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.
Continue reading Margaret Hamilton – her code got humans on the moonWhat if the Earth was tidally locked to the Sun?
We only see one side of the moon, because it is tidally locked to the planet Earth (tidal locking the situation when an object’s orbital period matches its rotational period). What if the Earth was tidally locked to the Sun?
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