Student education: Moon

Showing posts with label Moon. Show all posts

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Cassini finds Titan clouds hang on to summer

Cloud chasers studying Saturn's moon Titan say its clouds form and move much like those on Earth, but in a much slower, more lingering fashion.

Their forecast for Titan's early autumn -- warm and wetter.

Scientists with NASA's Cassini mission have monitored Titan's atmosphere for three-and-a-half years, between July 2004 and December 2007, and observed more than 200 clouds. They found that the way these clouds are distributed around Titan matches scientists' global circulation models. The only exception is timing -- clouds are still noticeable in the southern hemisphere while fall is approaching.

As summer changes to fall at the equinox in August 2009, Titan's clouds are expected to disappear altogether. But, circulation models of Titan's weather and climate predict that clouds at the southern latitudes don't wait for the equinox and should have already faded out since 2005. However, Cassini was still able to see clouds at these places late in 2007, and some of them are particularly active at mid-latitudes and the equator.

Titan is the only moon in our solar system with a substantial atmosphere, and its climate shares Earth-like characteristics. Titan's dense, nitrogen-methane atmosphere responds much more slowly than Earth's atmosphere, as it receives about 100 times less sunlight because it is 10 times farther from the sun. Seasons on Titan last more than seven Earth years.

Scientists will continue to observe the long-term changes during Cassini's extended mission, which runs until the fall of 2010. Cassini is set to fly by Titan on June 6.

Saturday, August 14, 2010

The mystery of the missing sunspots explained

An unusually slow-moving solar jet stream buried deep inside the Sun is causing the lack of sunspots and low solar activity, say scientists from the National Solar Observatory (NSO).

The Sun usually follows a fairly regular pattern, cycling through an 11 year period of magnetic intensity – during which, characteristic behaviour such as sunspots, flares and corona mass ejections are typical – followed by 11 years of relative quiescence. At present, the Sun is in a phase of extreme quietness when it should have been displaying more signs of activity, a mystery that has been confounding scientists over the last year.

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Moon mission picture of 1969 goes missing

The world is getting ready to celebrate next month the 40th anniversary of historical Apollo 11 flight which is the first manned mission to moon and the officials of Tata Institute Of Fundamental Reasearch (TIFR) at Colaba are trying to find out a priceless picture that is missing from their office.

The picture was autographed and presented to TIFR by the three astronauts Neil Armstrong , Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins who were the first humans to land on the surface of moon. The picture was the size of an A3 size paper placed in the director's office in TIFR and used to attract a lot of visitors.

Saturday, August 7, 2010

No water ice found in Japanese lunar mission

Japanese Selene lunar orbiter have failed to detect any signs of water in permanently shaded craters around the South pole of the Moon.

Although the Japanese lunar orbiter found no ice it did find a crater much deeper than other lunar craters of a similar diameter and internal temperatures that could support ice delivered by comets over billions of years.

It has also returned beautiful images of the Earth and Moon as the 40th anniversary of the first manned lunar landing by Apollo 11.

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Student Education-Water molecules on Lunar surface

NASA scientists have discovered water molecules in the polar regions of the moon. Water molecules are greater than predicted , but still relatively small.

Hydroxyl, a molecule consisting of one oxygen atom and one hydrogen atom, also was found in the lunar soil.

NASA's Moon Mineralogy Mapper, or M3, instrument reported the observations. M3 was carried into space on Oct. 22, 2008, aboard the Indian Space Research Organization's Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft. Data from the Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer, or VIMS, on NASA's Cassini spacecraft and the High-Resolution Infrared Imaging Spectrometer on

NASA's EPOXI spacecraft contributed to confirmation of the finding. The spacecraft imaging spectrometers made it possible to map lunar water more effectively than ever before.

The M3 team found water molecules and hydroxyl at diverse areas of the sunlit region of the moon's surface, but the water signature appeared stronger at the moon's higher latitudes.

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Moon crash plume visible to spacecraft

The image of impact plume of "moon bombing" by NASA.

In my previous blog posts Moon bombing to probe water and Was NASA moon bombing a success i told you about "moon bombing" by NASA .

NASA had said that observers from Earth will be able to see the plume of " Moon bombing'' with their telescopes but no one was able to see that from Earth.

Acoording to NASA nine instruments on board the LCROSS spacecraft captured the entire crash sequence of the Centaur impactor before the spacecraft itself impacted the surface of the moon.

From images and data, the team was able to determine the extent of the plume at 15 seconds after impact was approximately 6-8 km in diameter. The data which which the spacecraft has gathered is of high quality.

Sunday, March 21, 2010

First images from Lunar Reconnissance Orbiter

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has transmitted its first images since reaching moon.

LRO will help NASA to locate potential resources , describe the moon's radiation environment and identify safe landing sites for future explorers.

Friday, March 12, 2010

What is Harvest Moon?

I was surfing net when i stumbled upon a term "Harvest Moon" which i would like to share with you all in my this post.

Harvest moon is defined as the full moon closest to autumnal equinox . It is not an annual phenomenon but occurs once every four years and it occurred on 3rd October, 2009. It is usually brighter or colorful than other moons which is due to seasonal tilting of the year.

The Harvest moon is also known as the Wine Moon, the Singing Moon and the Elk Moon.

Enjoy the above beautiful pic of Harvest Moon taken on 3rd October, 2009.

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Full Moon and crimes

I love the sight of a full moon , poets love them and so are the criminals......... yes it is believed that the crime rate is high on a full moon , although there is no solid proof regarding it.

Even the scientists cannot give a correlation between the crime rates on a full moon lit night , babies conceived or born during that time or any other such occurences.

It is just a myth and nothing else . It is believed that we usually notice increase in such activities during a full moon night as we remember a full moon phase more than other moon phases.

If a crime is committed on a full moon night people remember it more as it is obvious than when the moon was a crescent.
crimes, births, and strange occurrences happen all month long, but only those that occur around Full Moon cause people to talk about them.
For everyone who love to watch a full moon would like to mention that 30th January,2009 will be a full moon lit night and it will be the biggest full moon of 2010.

Student education