This graphic represents the view due east at 7pm GMT on Christmas Day 2015 as seen from the centre of the British Isles, about an hour after full darkness has descended. The rising full Moon lies in the constellation Gemini, just above magnitude +1.9 star γ Geminorum, otherwise known as Alhena. This is the first time since 1977 that a full Moon has fallen on 25 December and the next time it occurs is 2034, so hopefully it will be clear! AN graphic by Ade Ashford.December’s full Moon, the last of the year, is called the Full Cold Moon because it occurs during the beginning of winter. The instant that this month’s full lunar phase will occur is 11:11am GMT and it will rise at 4:32pm GMT as seen from the centre of the British Isles.
As you gaze up at the Christmas Moon, take note that NASA has a spacecraft currently orbiting Earth’s only natural satellite. NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) mission has been investigating the Moon’s surface since 2009.How the Moon will appear on 25 December 2015. Image credits: NASA/Goddard/Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.“As we look at the Moon on such an occasion, it’s worth remembering that the Moon is more than just a celestial neighbour,” said John Keller, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “The geologic history of the Moon and Earth are intimately tied together such that the Earth would be a dramatically different planet without the Moon.”
LRO has collected a treasure trove of data with its seven powerful instruments, making an invaluable contribution to our knowledge about the Moon.
The total solar eclipse of Wednesday, 9 March 2016 is of relatively long duration — 4m 9s at greatest eclipse — which occurs at 1:57 UT. Totality is visible from Sumatra, Borneo, Sulawesi and the North Pacific Ocean, while the partial phases can be seen from East Asia, Australia and the Pacific Ocean. See the event unfold in these new NASA timelapse visualisations.
The space environment around a planet plays a key role in determining what molecules exist in the atmosphere – and whether the planet is habitable for life. New research shows that Venus has an “electric wind” strong enough to remove the components of water from its upper atmosphere, which may have played a significant role in stripping Earth’s twin planet of its oceans.
The Moon’s Orientale basin is an archetype of “multi-ring” basins found throughout the solar system. New research has enabled scientists to reconstruct Orientale’s formation using data from NASA’s GRAIL mission. It is now thought that the 580-mile-wide feature was created 3.8 billion years ago by an impacting object some 40 miles across travelling at about 9 miles per second.