Stories tagged moon
Dr. Edgar Mitchell, a former Apollo 14 astronaut and the sixth man to walk on the Moon has come out publicly to say extraterrestrial beings exist and have visited the Earth. During an interview on a British radio program last week Mitchell confirmed knowledge of NASA and government cover-ups of alien visitations to our planet including the famous incident near Roswell, New Mexico where it has long been rumored (but never confirmed) that a spaceship with alien occupants had crashed in 1947.
At the moment it’s all hearsay, and skeptics want to see some real evidence, but you have to admit Mitchell adds some credibility to the subject. The fact that all this has come out at the same time the new X-Files movie is opening could just be a coincidence or just another piece of the conspiracy. You can decide for yourself.
LINKS
CNN report
New Zealand television report
Letterman's Top Ten Reasons for NASA cover-up
KARE-TV report
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Footprint on the Moon: Astronaut Buzz Aldrin took a moment to document his own footprint on the Moon.
Courtesy NASAOn this day in 1969, less than nine years after President John F. Kennedy set the seemingly impossible goal of sending a man to the Moon and back, Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first human to walk on the Moon. He was joined a short time later by astronaut Edwin Aldrin. The two explorers spent two-and-a-half hours gathering moon rocks, setting up experiments, and planting the American flag, while astronaut Mike Collins orbited the Moon waiting to rendezvouz with the Lunar Module for the return trip to Earth. Here are lots of links about the Apollo lunar program
What moon am I?: Ancient cultures had special names for each full month's full moon. Tonight's full moon is a "Buck Moon." Can you figure out what moon this one is?
Courtesy Luc ViatourTonight there will be a full moon. It happens every 29.5 days, no big deal right?
But did you know each full moon through the cycle of a calendar year has a special name? Tonight’s full moon, the one for July, is called a “Buck Moon,” named after a male deer.
The special monthly names for the full moons go back to ancient cultures, who tied the full moons to hunting, weather, planting and harvesting cycles of the year. Full details can be found here.
FYI: Here is a rundown of the various names for each month’s full moon:
January – Wolf Moon
February – Snow Moon
March – Worm Moon
April – Pink Moon
May – Flower Moon
June – Strawberry Moon
July – Buck Moon
August – Sturgeon Moon
September – Harvest Moon
October – Hunter's Moon
November – Beaver Moon
December – Cold Moon
Two NASA scientists propose building giant telescopes on the Moon, using Moon dust as raw material. If successful, the telescopes would be larger than anything on Earth. And with no atmosphere to distort images, the pictures would be sharper, too.
Here's one in your eye, Moon!: Now stay gone!
Courtesy ModemacTake back the night, Buzzketeers! Too long has the moon made fools of us—it toys with our precious water, it lights up our most secret of outdoor moments, and it turns good, hard-working men and women into werewolves. So don’t let it trick you on top of all that.
Tomorrow is a full moon, one of the very sneakiest of moons, so be prepared—it’s very likely that you will think that the moon is bigger as it is just starting to rise than it is during the rest of its furtive trip across the sky. Do not be hoodwinked! This is a malicious collusion between the moon and your brain, which believes itself to be a very, very tiny moon, and will betray anyone, even you (especially you!), to gain favor with Moon Supreme.
The moon, of course, is the very same size near the horizon as it will be when it is directly above you. Your brain tries to tell you that it is bigger when it is at the horizon because we’re used to seeing things at the horizon as being very far away. When we see things above us, like clouds, they’re only a few miles away, and we aren’t impressed.
Tomorrow, show your brain just who’s boss. I recommend doing one of two things: a) rent the Cameron Diaz feature The Sweetest Thing, and then throw yourself down the basement steps, or b) hold a small object, say, a sea urchin, up at arm’s length against the moon when it’s rising, and again when it’s high in the sky—the moon will not have changed size. Your brain should be so embarrassed that it won’t trouble you again for days, and you will have stolen away one of the moon’s most valued secrets.
If you want to read this explanation again, but in a more original form and with diagrams, why don’t you go here?
From time to time as I gather up the questions from the on-site Scientist on the Spot features we find some good questions that don’t connect well to the featured researcher. Here are some of those questions.
Why are stars circles?
Iapetus' equatorial ridge
Courtesy NASAI am assuming you mean, why are they round or spheres? It’s because of gravity. The larger something is (or the more mass something has) the more gravity it has. That gravity pulls equally in, so that’s why stars and planets are round, gravity makes them that way. The fancy-pants scientific name for this is isostatic adjustment.
But the Earth, for example, is not a perfect sphere – it bulges out in the middle because of its rotation. Smaller asteroids are oddly shaped because they don’t have enough mass to produce the gravity necessary to pull them into spheres. Some planets are oddly shaped too, and scientists are not sure exactly why. Saturn’s moon Iapetus is a great example. It is for some reason shaped more like a walnut and has an equatorial ridge that scientists cannot come to a conclusion as to how it formed.
What is a pimple?
Well, our skin has pores which are connected to glands that produce sebum – like an oil. Sebum is a good thing - it acts to protect and waterproof our skin, and keeps it from becoming dry. When these pores get blocked by dirt or dead skin (which we shed constantly) the secretions of sebum that would normally come from the pore are blocked and build up. These can become infected with bacteria which causes pimples to form.
The harder question is for me – to pop or not to pop. I can’t resist popping a pimple – it is a character flaw that has resulted in me sporting many a wound worse than the original zit. A great “how to pop a pimple” step-by-step is posted here.
Why do beans make us fart?
When food gets to your large intestine it is eaten by the 200+ different species of bacteria that live there and target parts of the food our stomach and small intestines can't digest, and gasses such as methane, hydrogen and hydrogen sulfide are produced as a by-product. Beans contain several sugars that we can’t digest, so lots of gas is produced by bacteria eating the otherwise indigestible material.
What is the scientific name for a pig?
What is the moon?
The big whack
Courtesy NASAYou mean besides being the only natural satellite of the Earth and the cause of the tides and so forth?
I think that the Earth collision theory (also known as the Big Whack) for the creation of the moon is the coolest, and is the one that is the most accepted today. The hypothesis goes that a Mars-sized (Mars is less than half the size of the Earth) planet collided with Earth a looooooooooong time ago and the debris that was created orbited around the damaged Earth and formed into the moon through a process called accretion – or the growth of large bodies like the moon by gravitationally attracting more matter. So the little bits of debris were attracted to bigger and bigger bits as the bigger bits had more gravity. As we learned above, the spherical shape arises from gravity as well. It is believed that as a result of the collision the smaller planet (Theia) was destroyed, ejecting its mantle into space while its core sank into Earth’s core.
Did you know that the moon is in synchronous rotation with the Earth? That means it keeps nearly the same face turned towards the Earth at all times.
They seem to be popping up everywhere these days:
Lunar eclipse sequence
Courtesy Mark Ryan
Saturn, Moon, and Regulus
Courtesy Mark RyanTonight's total lunar eclipse was the last one until 2010. In the photo below, Saturn can be seen in the lower left and the star Regulus hovers above the Moon (they're easier to see if you click on the photo for a larger view). Art posted some very interesting lunar eclipse information earlier this week which you can find
P.S. ----- Below is a timelapse of the eclipse posted recently on YouTube:
Stranded Columbus crew starving in Jamaica
Lunar eclipse Feb 20, 2008
Courtesy NASA Kennedy Space Center Christopher Columbus sailed to the "New World" several times after his 1492 voyage. On his fourth and last journey ship worms so decimated his four ships that Columbus had to put ashore on the North coast of Jamaica and wait for rescue. Initially, the Jamaican natives welcomed the castaways, providing them with food and shelter in exchange for trinkets and whistles. When the natives no longer wished to provide food after more than six months, half of Columbus' crew mutinied, robbing and murdering some of the natives. With famine now threatening, Columbus formulated a desperate, albeit ingenious plan.
A bad moon is going to rise
Columbus, like all good sailors, had an almanac containing astronomical tables providing detailed information about the sun, moon and planets. Using its tables, Columbus calculated that on the evening of Thursday, Feb. 29, 1504, a total eclipse of the moon would take place soon after the time of moonrise. Three days before the eclipse Columbus told the chief that
his Christian god was angry with his people for no longer supplying Columbus and his men with food. Therefore, he was about to provide a clear sign of his displeasure: Three nights hence, he would all but obliterate the rising full moon, making it appear "inflamed with wrath," which would signify the evils that would soon be inflicted upon all of them.
According to Columbus's son, Ferdinand, when the moon started to eclipse, the natives ". . . with great howling and lamentation came running from every direction to the ships laden with provisions, praying to the Admiral to intercede with his god on their behalf." Just moments before the end of the total phase Columbus reappeared, announcing to the natives that his god had pardoned them and would now allow the moon to gradually return. Columbus and his men were well supplied and well fed until a relief caravel from Hispaniola finally arrived on June 29, 1504.
Total Lunar eclipse Wed. Feb 20 from 9-10 p.m. CST
Click this for information on when the lunar eclipse occurs around the world.The moon will start entering Earth's shadow at 7:43 pm CST Wednesday. Click this next link for an explanation of how and why you see the moon colored blood red, bright orange, or even a gentle turquoise.
Source: Space.com
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