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TOPIC: The Moon


L

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Shackleton Crater
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A piece of prime real estate on the Moon is much older than previously thought, which means theres been more time for water ice to have collected there. The conclusion, based on analysis of data from the SMART-1 mission, makes the crater a very attractive site for a lunar colony, according to scientists behind the study.

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RE: The Moon
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Using new techniques, scientists have discovered for the first time that tiny beads of volcanic glasses collected from two Apollo missions to the Moon contain water. The researchers found that, contrary to previous thought, water was not entirely vaporized in the violent events that formed the Moon. The new study suggests that the water came from the Moon’s interior and was delivered to the surface via volcanic eruptions over 3 billion years ago. The finding calls into question some critical aspects of the “giant impact” theory of the Moon’s formation and may have implications for the origin of possible water reservoirs at the Moon’s poles. The research is published in the July 10, 2008, of Nature.

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Researchers have found the first evidence of past water on the moon: trace water molecules trapped in glassy, volcanic pebbles brought back to Earth by Apollo astronauts in the 1960s and early 1970s.

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In its youth our Moon may have once been bracketed by two asteroidal companions, says a new study. From Earth, these tiny moons up to 100 km wide would have appeared as two extremely bright stars.

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The ancient catastrophe that gave birth to the Moon may have produced additional satellites that lingered in Earth's skies for tens of millions of years.
A new model suggests moonlets may have once occupied the two Earth-Moon Lagrangian points, regions in space where the gravitational tug of the Earth and the Moon exactly cancel each other out. Objects trapped in these points are called Trojans and can remain stationary forever if left undisturbed.

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Title: Basic Mechanics of Planet-Satellite Interaction with special reference to Earth-Moon System
Authors: Bijay Kumar Sharma

In1879 George Howard Darwin theoretically analysed the outward spiralling orbit of Moon and the subsequent lengthening of the Mean Solar Day. The author redid the same analysis based on the fact that Moon was receding at the rate of 3.8 cm per annum. Basic Mechanics of Earth-Moon is worked out and various system parameters are optimised to fit the given boundary condition obtained by Apollo Mission and other modern means of observations. Based on this theoretical formulation the theoretical graph of the lengthening of the Mean Solar Day with respect to time is drawn and is compared with the observational graph of the same based on pale ontological data, paleo tidal data and iron-banded formation. The observational data on Mean Solar Day is found to follow the theoretical smooth curve in post-Cambrian Era but is found to deviate in the remote past. This deviation is corrected by taking the evolving form of Moment of Inertia of Earth. The deviation of the observed data prompts the Author to suggest that the lengthening of the Mean Solar Day curve could possibly be used as an analytical seismograph for the impending earthquakes and sudden volcanic eruptions. The Basic Mechanics of E-M system is generalized to lay the foundation of simulation software for any Planet-Satellite pair in our Solar System.

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NASA-supported scientists have realized that something does happen every month when the Moon gets a lashing from Earth's magnetic tail.

"Earth's magnetotail extends well beyond the orbit of the Moon and, once a month, the Moon orbits through it. This can have consequences ranging from lunar 'dust storms' to electrostatic discharges" - Tim Stubbs, a University of Maryland scientist working at the Goddard Space Flight Centre.

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The Moon's south pole
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NASA has obtained the highest resolution terrain mapping to date of the moon's rugged south polar region, with a resolution to 20 meters per pixel. Scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., collected the data using the facility's Goldstone Solar System Radar located in California's Mojave Desert. The imagery generated by the data has been incorporated into animation depicting the descent to the lunar surface of a future human lunar lander and a flyover of Shackleton Crater.
The mapping data collected indicate that the region of the moon's south pole near Shackleton Crater is much more rugged than previously understood. The Shackleton rim area is considered a candidate landing site for a future human mission to the moon.

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This movie is a simulation of the amount of solar illumination in the south polar region of moon over a solar day generated using high resolution topography.
This animation utilises the latest terrain data of the moon's south pole region in the generation of a animation of what a future moon crew could see during a descent to the rim of Shackleton Crater.

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RE: The Moon
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NASA will release enhanced radar imagery of lunar South Pole
NASA scientists have obtained the highest resolution terrain mapping to date of the moon's rugged south polar region and will discuss the imagery Wednesday, Feb. 27, at the 3rd Space Exploration Conference in Denver.
Researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, generated the imagery using data collected with the facility's Goldstone Solar System Radar. The news media briefing is scheduled for noon MST in Room 506 of the Colorado Convention Centre.

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Earth-Asteroid Collision Formed Moon Later Than Thought
The moon was formed from fragments of Earth after a collision with a giant asteroid relatively late in our planet's formation, new tests of moon rocks show.
The finding upends many of the prior theories for how the moon came to be, researchers say.
Scientists have long believed that the moon was formed by a collision between our planet and a Mars-size object.
Computer models have shown that in this scenario 80 percent of the moon's material should have come from the asteroid, with only 20 percent from Earth.
But the new study of moon rocks collected three decades ago by Apollo astronauts, however, found that Earth and the rocks were too similar for that to be the case.

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