The Moon – Astronomy Now

Valleys on the Moon

13 February 2024 Mark Armstrong

With a waxing Moon riding high in the early-evening sky, now is a good time to become acquainted with four of the best valleys on the lunar surface.

NASA opening a 50-year-old vacuum-sealed moon sample

6 March 2022 Astronomy Now

NASA is in the process of carefully opening a vacuum-sealed rock-and-soil sample collected during the Apollo 17 mission 50 years ago.

Fossil shows days were a half hour shorter during age of dinosaurs

12 March 2020 Astronomy Now

Studying growth rings in a fossilised clam shell, scientists found the length of a day 70 million years ago was a half hour shorter than today.

Don’t miss Tuesday night’s partial lunar eclipse

15 July 2019 Mark Armstrong

A partial eclipse of the Moon will be visible from across the UK on the evening of 16/17 July, with the Moon rising already partially immersed in Earth’s deep umbral shadow.

A heavenly host of robotic space missions announced

21 June 2019 Astronomy Now

ESA and NASA announce new missions to study a pristine comet, the solar corona and how the solar wind interacts with Earth’s atmosphere.

Re-analysis of Apollo seismic data indicates Moon still active

14 May 2019 Astronomy Now

A re-analysis of Apollo seismic data, along with ongoing observations by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, indicate the Moon is still tectonically active.

Ice deposits confirmed near Moon’s poles, confirming earlier indications

21 August 2018 Astronomy Now

Data from a NASA instrument aboard India’s Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft has directly observed ‘definitive’ evidence of ice in shadowed craters at the Moon’s south polar region and with more sparsely distributed ice near the north pole.

Extracting critical resources from the Moon topic of ESA workshop

5 July 2018 Astronomy Now

European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst captured this spectacular view of the moon just above Earth’s discernible atmosphere from his perch aboard the International Space Station. ESA held a workshop this week focused on extracting lunar resources.

UK team announces plan to crowd-source moon mission

20 November 2014 Stephen Clark

Scientists hope private backers will kick-start a mission to land a robotic probe on the South Pole of the moon within the next 10 years, drill deep into lunar bedrock and analyze primordial core samples to study the origins of the solar system.

Ghosts on the Moon at Halloween

31 October 2014 Astronomy Now

Peter Grego gets into the Halloween spirit by picking out some ghostly craters to thrill those treating themselves to an evening of lunar gazing.