Tag Archive for 'Moon'

A high-resolution free-air gravity map based on data returned from NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission, overlaid on terrain based on NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) altimeter and camera data. The view is south-up, with the south pole near the horizon in the upper left. The terminator crosses the eastern rim of the Schrödinger basin. Gravity is painted onto the areas that are in or near the night side. Red corresponds to mass excesses and blue to mass deficits. Image credit: NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio.

Solar Wind and Meteoroids Erode Water Frost in Lunar Polar Craters, Planetary Researchers Say

Jul 24, 2019 by News Staff

Lunar orbiters recently detected water frost on the floor of some of the south polar craters, regions that are known to be very cold and can trap water....

The South Pole-Aitken Basin on the lunar far side is one of the largest and oldest impact features in the Solar System. It’s easily seen in the elevation data. The low center is dark blue and purple. Mountains on its edge, remnants of outer rings, are red and yellow. Image credit: NASA / GSFC / University of Arizona.

Mysterious Mass of Material Discovered Beneath Moon’s South Pole-Aitken Basin

Jun 11, 2019 by News Staff

The South Pole-Aitken basin — the largest crater in the Solar System — is a gigantic impact structure on the far side of the Moon. Data from...

Global map of the albedo from the 750 nm filter of the UV-VIS camera onboard NASA’s Clementine spacecraft. The image shows the near side and far side of the Moon in Lambert, equal-area projection. Image credit: NASA.

Moon’s Nearside-Farside Asymmetries are Result of Ancient Giant Impact, Says New Study

May 23, 2019 by News Staff

The Moon has striking asymmetries between its nearside and farside in topography, crustal thickness, and composition. A new study, published in the Journal...

Topographic map of the Moon’s south pole (80°S to pole). Image credit: Lunar and Planetary Institute / Universities Space Research Association / NASA.

Planetary Researchers Create Atlas of Moon’s South Pole

May 22, 2019 by News Staff

To assist NASA and the lunar community, a team of researchers from the Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI) has compiled an online atlas that consists of...

The Yutu-2 rover moves across the far side of the Moon. Image credit: CNSA.

Yutu-2 Rover Finds Lunar Mantle Minerals on the Far Side of the Moon

May 16, 2019 by News Staff

China’s Chang’E-4 lander recently touched down in Von Karman — a 112-mile (180 km) wide crater located within an even larger impact crater known...

This thrust fault is one of thousands discovered on the Moon by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. These faults resemble small stair-shaped cliffs, or scarps, when seen from the lunar surface. The scarps form when one section of the Moon’s crust (left-pointing arrows) is pushed up over an adjacent section (right-pointing arrows) as the Moon’s interior cools and shrinks. Image credit: NASA / GSFC / Arizona State University / Smithsonian Institution.

Moon is Still Tectonically Active, Researchers Say

May 14, 2019 by News Staff

In 2010, an analysis of images from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) found that the Moon shriveled like a raisin as its interior cooled, leaving...

Water is released from the Moon during meteor showers, when micrometeoroid impacts breach the dry lunar surface and eject water molecules from a hydrated layer below. Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center / Conceptual Image Lab.

LADEE Detects Water Molecules from Meteoroid Strikes on Moon

Apr 17, 2019 by News Staff

Using data from NASA’s Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE), a team of researchers has discovered that water is being released from...

A view of the Moon’s south pole showing where reflectance and temperature data indicate the possible presence of surface water ice. Image credit: NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio.

NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Detects Migrating Water on Moon

Mar 13, 2019 by News Staff

Using data from the LAMP (Lyman Alpha Mapping Project) instrument aboard NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, planetary researchers have observed water...

The extent of Earth’s geocorona. Image credit: ESA.

Earth’s Hydrogen Geocorona Extends Well Beyond Moon

Feb 22, 2019 by News Staff

Recent observations from the NASA/ESA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) show that the Earth’s hydrogen envelope reaches up to 391,500 miles...

A January 30, 2019, image from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter orbiting the Moon shows Chang’e 4 lander; arrows indicate position of the lander on the floor of Von Karman crater; the sharp crater behind and to the left of the landing site is 12,800 feet (3,900 m) across and 1,970 feet (600 m) deep. Image credit: NASA / GSFC / Arizona State University.

NASA Orbiter Spies China’s Chang’e-4 Lander

Feb 7, 2019 by News Staff

NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) recently caught a view of China National Space Administration’s Chang’e-4 lander on the lunar surface. A...

The two Moon-exploring crew men of the Apollo 14 lunar landing mission photographed and collected the large rock pictured just above the exact center of this picture. The rock, casting a shadow off to the left, is the lunar breccia 14321. It lies between the wheel tracks made by the modular equipment transporter (MET) or rickshaw-type portable workbench. A few prints of the lunar overshoes of the crew members are at the left. This photo was made near the boulder field near the rim of Cone Crater. Image credit: NASA.

Terrestrial Meteorite Found on the Moon

Jan 29, 2019 by News Staff

A lunar rock sample collected by Apollo 14 astronauts in 1971 contains traces of minerals with a chemical composition common to Earth and very unusual...

An artist’s impression of an extrasolar submoon. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

Can Moons Have Submoons?

Jan 25, 2019 by News Staff

Saturn’s moons Titan and Iapetus, Jupiter’s moon Callisto, Earth’s Moon, and the recently-discovered extrasolar moon Kepler 1625b-i are capable of...

Greenwood et al discovered that water was present on Earth at an early stage in its evolution and survived the giant impact, which formed the Moon. This is an artist’s depiction of a catastrophic collision between two celestial bodies; such an impact between the proto-Earth and Theia likely formed the Moon. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Earth’s Essential Elements for Life Probably Came from Another Planet

Jan 24, 2019 by News Staff

Planetary researchers believe that our Moon was created more than 4.4 billion years ago in a catastrophic collision between proto-Earth and a hypothetical...

Chang’e-4 Probe Touches Down on Far Side of the Moon

Jan 4, 2019 by Enrico de Lazaro

At 9:26 p.m. EST on January 2, 2019 (2:26 a.m. GMT, 10:26 a.m. Beijing Time on January 3), China National Space Administration’s Chang’e-4 lunar probe...

An artist’s impression of the Kordylewski dust cloud in the night sky. Image credit: Gábor Horváth.

Astronomers Confirm Existence of Kordylewski Dust Clouds

Oct 29, 2018 by News Staff

A research team from Hungary has confirmed the existence of two enigmatic celestial objects called Kordylewski dust clouds (KDCs) — large concentrations...

The Reiner Gamma formation is a well known lunar swirl region, due to its nearside location. Swirls are described by curving, diffuse bright patterns, which are interspersed with darker lanes. These anomalous albedo patterns are associated with local magnetic anomalies of varying intensities; swirl complexes are often extensive and may stretch across thousands of kilometers, well beyond localized magnetic anomalies. Image credit: NASA / LPI.

Lunar Swirls May Be Produced by Strongly Magnetized Lava

Sep 7, 2018 by News Staff

Planetary researchers from Rutgers University and the University of California, Berkeley may have solved the mystery behind lunar swirls, wispy bright...

Researchers Find Direct Evidence of Water Ice in Moon’s Polar Regions

Aug 21, 2018 by News Staff

A team of researchers led by Dr. Shuai Li of the University of Hawaii and Brown University has directly observed definitive evidence of surface-exposed...

Moon May Have Had Conditions Suitable for Life, Astrobiologists Say

Jul 24, 2018 by News Staff

There may have been two windows of habitability for the Moon, according to new research by University of London’s Professor Ian Crawford and Dr. Dirk...

Professors Meyers and Malinverno reconstructed the deep history of Earth’s relationship to the Moon. Image credit: Jonny Lindner.

Moon is Making Days on Earth Longer: Study

Jun 12, 2018 by News Staff

Around 1.4 billion years ago, a day on Earth lasted approximately 18.7 hours, according to a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy...

This image from NASA’s MarCO-B (known as ‘Wall-E’ to the MarCO team) CubeSat shows the spacecraft’s unfolded high-gain antenna at right and the Earth and the Moon in the center. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

NASA’s MarCO-B CubeSat Captures Earth-Moon Image

May 16, 2018 by News Staff

NASA’s MarCO-B spacecraft — one of two CubeSats accompanying the space agency’s Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and...

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