LRO
The Moon is shrinking!
The Moon is shrinking!
Well, a little: new results from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter indicate that over recent geological time, the Moon has shrunk by approximately 100 meters in diameter!
Here’s the evidence, or at least one piece of it:
[Click to unshrinkenate.]
Ash hole on the Moon
The Moon is a funny place. It’s literally the closest astronomical object to us in the entire Universe, but in some ways we know surprisingly little about it.
It’s literally covered in craters, but for a long time their origin was a mystery. Until the 1870s, most scientists thought they were volcanic in origin and not from impacts (it wasn’t until 1960 that Gene Shoemaker showed that some craters on Earth were impact events). That doesn’t mean that there are no volcanoes on the Moon, though. The evidence isn’t — har-de-har — rock solid, but this Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter image is awfully tantalizing:
Radar Images Reveal Tons of Water Likely at the Lunar Poles
High-resolution view from LRO's Mini-RF of the Moon's north polar region, inset is an unusual crater , Rozhdestvensky (110 miles, or 177 kilometers in diameter). Credit: NASA
A living world, from 370,000 km away
In all the solar system, in all the galaxy, in all the Universe, there is but one world we know for sure harbors life.
Home.
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter took this picture in June 2010. From 373,000 km (231,000 miles) away, however, the evidence of life is scant. The image is gray scale, with no blue-green color to give away forests, oceans, carbon-based oxygen-breathing organisms. But we still know it’s there.
Lunar triple sunset
I never get tired of the stunning pictures being sent to Earth from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. This one is particularly cool:
It’s a little weird, isn’t it? What you’re seeing is sunset over some mountains on the Moon, with only the peaks popping up into the sunlight. It might help to pull back a bit:
[Click to embiggen.]
VAXHeadroom answers, “How do satellites communicate?”
Our crazy rocket scientist VAXHeadroom answers the question ‘How do satellites communicate?’ VAX is a software engineer for spacecraft, so understanding how space communications work is pretty darned important! You can view the original interview with VAX right here on Spacevidcast and we’re excited to see what additional awesome content VAX comes up with.
Apollo 16 site snapped from orbit
Once again, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has captured pictures of humanity’s presence on the Moon! This time, it’s the Apollo 16 landing site:
The best planet pictures in the solar system
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Beautiful images, beautiful launches and SVC on HDTV – SpacePod 2010.06.30
Beautiful images, beautiful launches and awesome new features on your SpacePod for June 30th, 2010 Lets take a look at some stunning images, shall we? We start or journey with an amazing picture taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter or LRO. With the Wide Angle Camera pointed at Earth, the LRO team took this awesome view of our home planet.
One Year of the LRO
Click here to view the embedded video.
A year already! I can hardly believe it.
Here’s a video named aptly: 10 Cool Things Seen in the First Year of LRO. I think my top two picks are the Apollo landing sites and finding one of the Russian rovers.
The video has very limited sound.
Also You Tube was very slow earlier, hopefully it is faster for you.
