Amazing after all these years and with the phenomenal telescopes that have been built in the years since Pluto was discovered, they discover a new moon.
International Business Times
Astronomers have discovered a fourth moon orbiting the distant planet of Pluto using the Hubble Space Telescope. The latest discovery has been temporarily named P4 and joins the planet's other three satellites; Charon, Nix and Hydra.
The finding has been the result of the ongoing work supporting NASA's New Horizons mission which is scheduled to fly through the Pluto system in 2015.
"I find it remarkable that Hubble's cameras enabled us to see such a tiny object so clearly from a distance of more than 3 billion miles (5 billion km)," stated Mark Showalter of the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif., who led this observing program with Hubble.
Although P4 is the temporary designation of Pluto's new satellite, astronomers and space researchers have been dwelling on all possible names for the fourth moon.
Thursday, July 21, 2011
What should be the Name of Pluto’s Fourth Moon?
Monday, December 20, 2010
Hey what's happening to the Moon?
A lunar eclipse early tomorrow morning,that's what.
And it will be another three years or so before we see one again.
It is a Visually awesome thing to see, as the moon turns a orangish brown, or a Blood red Color.
Kansas City.com
The moon will put on a three-hour show early Tuesday, slowly disappearing, turning copper red, and reappearing.
The red part — a full eclipse, with the Earth's companion orb covered by the Earth's shadow — is expected to last from 1:41 to 2:53 a.m.
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Newfound Asteroid to Buzz Earth Thursday
Within the orbit of the Moon is pretty damn close .
At About 71 feet across it would be about half the size of the Meteorite that formed Meteor Crater .
Foxnews
A newly discovered asteroid will zip close by Earth Thursday, but poses no threat of crashing into our planet even though it is passing within the orbit of the moon.
The asteroid, called 2010 GA6, is a relatively small space rock about 71 feet wide and was discovered by astronomers with the Catalina Sky Survey in Tucson, Az. The space rock will fly within the orbit of the moon when it passes Earth Thursday at 7:06 p.m. EDT (2306 GMT), but NASA astronomers said not to worry...the planet is safe.
"Fly bys of near-Earth objects within the moon's orbit occur every few weeks," said Don Yeomans of NASA's Near-Earth Object Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., in a statement.
At the time of its closest pass, asteroid 2010 GA6 will be about 223,000 miles from the Earth. That's about nine-tenths the distance between Earth and the moon [more asteroid photos].
The space rock is not the first asteroid to swing close by Earth this year.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
NASA to Get $6 Billion to Outsource Crew Ferry
Outsourcing is the way to go for NASA , they have been doing it for years (With American Companies )
For NASA to Accomplish this within A "Government" Structure , it Total Well over the Amount for the Obamacare Plan !
Jan. 28 (Bloomberg) -- NASA would receive a $6 billion boost in funding over five years to spur companies to develop rockets capable of taking astronauts to the International Space Station, an administration official said.
In total, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration would receive $100 billion over five years under President Barack Obama’s fiscal year 2011 budget, the official said.
“My initial impression is that this is a real significant indication of support for NASA in a time of tight budgets,” said former astronaut Sally Ride in an interview.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
NASA spacecraft confirms water ice deposits on moon
This is really from a couple of days ago , been busy ,busy ,busy !
But Amazing , not only did they find water this time but they found a significant amount ! So much that it will now stir the brains of NASA into a full fledged Moon Mission ! ( If they Can Keep Obama Out of the Way )
Making a bigger splash than expected, the crash of an empty rocket stage in a permanently shadowed crater near the moon's south pole last month kicked up a surprising amount of water ice and vapor, confirming the presence of a potentially valuable resource for future space travelers.
"I'm here today to tell you that indeed, yes, we found water," said Anthony Colaprete, the project scientist and principal investigator for the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite. "And we didn't find just a little bit, we found a significant amount."
Holding up water jugs to make the point, he said "if you remember, a month ago we were talking about teaspoons going into glasses over football fields. Well, now I can say today that in the 20- to 30-meter (65- to 100-foot-wide) crater LCROSS made, we found maybe about a dozen of these two-gallon buckets worth of water."
And more than water. Data from the LCROSS instruments show signs of other compounds that may shed light on the moon's evolution.
"It's a whole lot more beyond the water," Colaprete said. "That's the exciting part in my mind, it's not only about the water now. There's actually a lot more here that we're going to be talking about in the months ahead, looking at the LCROSS data."
Friday, October 9, 2009
NASA to moon: Get ready because here we come
Very cool stuff , this would be the second time NASA has slammed a probe into the Moon looking for signs of Ice !
....
WASHINGTON — Two NASA spacecraft are barreling toward the moon at twice the speed of a bullet, about to crash into a lunar crater in a search for ice.
If all goes well, the impact will be beamed back live to Earth.
The first and much bigger crash is set for 7:31 a.m. EDT. That's when an empty rocket that weighs 2.2 tons should hit the crater Cabeus and create a minicrater about half the size of an Olympic pool. It should kick up a plume of lunar debris about six miles high.
The idea is to confirm the theory that water — a key resource if people are going to go back to the moon — is hidden below the barren moonscape.
Trailing behind the rocket is the lunar probe LCROSS, short for Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite and pronounced L-Cross, beaming back to Earth live pictures of the impact and the debris plume using color cameras. It will scour for ice, fly through the debris cloud and then just four minutes later take the fatal plunge itself, triggering a dust storm one-third the size of the first hit.
Telescopes around the world — including the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope — will aim their cameras at the big event to provide more views of the dust-up.
LCROSS and its bigger rocket stage launched together last June and only separated Thursday night, the last major milestone before the big crash.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Apollo 11 Moon Landing
Forty years ago today, the US successfully sent 2 men to the Moon. NASA has released remastered videos of the historical event.
Friday, July 17, 2009
Lunar orbiter photographs Apollo landing sites
And people will still call it a hoax , even though you can plainly see that the lander is there ! either way it's very cool !
cnet....
Forty years after the Apollo 11 voyage to the moon, NASA released photographs from the new Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft Friday showing five of the six Apollo landing sites. Shadows cast by the Apollo descent stages are clearly visible and in some cases, the moon walkers' paths can be seen in the disturbed dust.
"We were very interested in getting our first peek at the lunar module descent stages just for the thrill - and to see how well the cameras had come into focus," Mark Robinson, principal investigator of the LRO's main camera, said in a statement. "Indeed, the images are fantastic and so is the focus."
The Apollo 11, 14, 15, 16, and 17 landing sites were photographed between July 11 and 15. The Apollo 12 landing site will be imaged during upcoming orbits.
Launched June 18, the Lunar Reconnaissance orbiter braked into an initially elliptical orbit around the moon on June 23. It eventually will be maneuvered into a circular 31-mile-high orbit, allowing it to photograph surface features - including the Apollo landing sites - with three times greater resolution than the pictures released Friday.
NASA's New 'Pimped-Out' Lunar Rover
Riding in style , what a way to roll around the moon ! Space vehicles are some of the most technically advanced Vehicles around , During the original Apollo missions , Astronauts had to be back to the lunar lander after so much time driving around (And they never really went far ) , now they will be able to explore for days !
fox news....
NASA's new moon rover looks like it's been on TV's "Pimp My Ride."
While the Apollo-era vehicle that first landed on the moon in 1971 resembled a rickety dune buggy, NASA's 21st Century rover plans look like a luxury lunar RV.
There may be no more open-air lunar drives clad in bulky spacesuits for astronauts. Instead, future moon travelers can ride in style in an enclosed cabin complete with sleeping bunks for long rides. Bubble-shaped windows will provide a panoramic view.
The new vehicle, currently being designed by NASA as part of its Constellation program to revisit the moon by 2020, is called the Lunar Electric Rover (LER).
Thursday, June 18, 2009
NASA launches mission to explore the moon
The L.A. times....
NASA took the first concrete step toward returning human beings to the moon Thursday, successfully launching the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter on a mission to find the best place to land and build Earth's first off-world colony.
The 19-story-high, two-stage rocket and spacecraft launched at 2:32 p.m Pacific time. As the huge first-stage Atlas V rocket roared to life at Cape Canaveral in central Florida, NASA spokesman George Diller called it "America's first step in a lasting return to the moon."
The $500-million orbiter will spend the next year cruising just 31 miles above the lunar surface, employing a suite of seven instruments to identify landing hazards such as rocks and craters. It will be paying particular attention to the largely unknown lunar poles, where previous missions have picked up hints that water ice may exist in some permanently shadowed craters.
Locating water on the apparently dessicated moon would be a major discovery that would make permanent settlements much more feasible. Water would not only be useful for drinking, but it would also be invaluable as a source of oxygen for respiration and rocket fuel.
