moon – Page 18 – Astronomy Now

China aims for landing on Moon’s far side by 2020

22 September 2015 Stephen Clark

A rover and landing platform developed as a backup for China’s Chang’e 3 Moon mission will be repurposed to attempt the first touchdown on the lunar far side by the end of the decade, Chinese officials said.

Earth photobombs SDO’s view of 13 September partial solar eclipse

14 September 2015 Astronomy Now

The alignment of Sun, Moon and Earth resulted in a partial solar eclipse on 13 September, visible only from the southern tip of Africa and Antarctica. But as NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, kept up its constant watch on the Sun, its view of the eclipse was photobombed by the Earth — the first time that an Earth eclipse and a lunar transit have coincided.

Early Moon’s far-side crust shattered by barrage of small asteroids

11 September 2015 Astronomy Now

Scientists at MIT and elsewhere have identified regions on the far side of the Moon, called the lunar highlands, that may have been so heavily pelted by small asteroids during a period called the Late Heavy Bombardment 4 billion years ago that the impacts completely shattered the upper crust, leaving these regions essentially as fractured and porous as they could be.

See the Moon & Venus get close in the pre-dawn sky

9 September 2015 Ade Ashford

As dawn creeps across Western Europe on the morning of Thursday, 10 September, a close conjunction of the two brightest objects in the nighttime sky is taking place low in the east an hour before sunrise. So, set your alarm for 5:30am in the UK to see a beautiful juxtaposition of a 26-day-old waning crescent Moon and dazzling planet Venus in the twilight.

See the Moon hit a bull’s-eye in Taurus, pre-dawn 5 September

4 September 2015 Ade Ashford

In the dawn twilight of Saturday, 5 September, observers in the British Isles with clear skies can see the last quarter Moon pass in front of first-magnitude star Aldebaran in the constellation Taurus — the brightest star (aside from the Sun) to be occulted by the Moon as seen from the UK this year.

Research may solve Moon’s volcanic fire-fountain mystery

24 August 2015 Astronomy Now

Tiny beads of volcanic glass found on the lunar surface during the Apollo missions are a sign that fire fountain eruptions took place on the Moon’s surface. Now, scientists have identified the volatile gas that drove those eruptions. If volatile reservoirs on the Earth and Moon do indeed share a common source, it has implications for understanding the Moon’s origin.

NASA’s LADEE spacecraft finds neon in lunar atmosphere

17 August 2015 Astronomy Now

The Moon’s thin atmosphere contains neon, a gas commonly used in electric signs on Earth because of its intense glow. While scientists have speculated on the presence of neon in the lunar atmosphere for decades, NASA’s Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) spacecraft has confirmed its existence for the first time.

Watch the Moon transit the Earth

5 August 2015 Stephen Clark

Spectacular views from a NOAA space weather observatory show the sunlit far side of the moon crossing the face of the Earth from a distant vantage point a million miles away.

See Saturn close to the Moon on the evening of 26 July

26 July 2015 Ade Ashford

Saturn’s summer apparition for 2015 is drawing to a close as the ringed planet is highest in the southern sky before sunset for observers in the British Isles, but it can still be found in the bright evening twilight if you have a convenient guide — like tonight’s gibbous Moon.

Saturn’s moons pose for ‘mother and daughter’ portrait

23 July 2015 Astronomy Now

Dione and Tethys, two moons of Saturn, pose together for a mythological ‘mother and daughter’ portrait in this image from the Cassini mission.