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TOPIC: The Moon
Blobrana


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Lunar exosphere
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Several decades ago scientists discovered that the Moon, long thought to have no atmosphere, actually does have an extremely thin exosphere. Scientists generally believe that the ions that make up the lunar exosphere are generated at the Moon's surface by interaction with solar photons, plasma in the Earth's magnetosphere, or micrometeorites. However, scientists have been uncertain about which processes are the main contributors of lunar exosphere ions.
Using instruments aboard the Japanese lunar orbiter SELENE (also known as Kaguya), Tanaka et al. made the first spacecraft-based observations of the lunar exosphere when the Moon was inside Earth's magnetosphere. They detected ions of several elements at 100-kilometer altitude above the lunar surface.
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Blobrana


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RE: The Moon
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Fresh Copernican Crater

A key part of the LROC science investigation is the imaging and analysis of fresh, Copernican-aged craters (craters younger than 1.1 billion years), like this small (6-km diameter) example at the edge of Oceanus Procellarum, west of Balboa crater. The LROC team has seen a variety of landforms related to these important lunar features. For example, a landslide on the crater wall partially covers the solidified impact melts on the floor. The landslide clearly happened after the crater initially formed; the materials were likely dislodged by seismic shaking from nearby smaller impacts.
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Blobrana


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The Moon has the coldest place in the Solar System measured by a spacecraft.
Nasa's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has used its Diviner instrument to probe the insides of permanently shadowed craters on Earth's satellite.
It found mid-winter, night-time surface temperatures inside the coldest craters in the northern polar region can dip as low as minus 249C (26 Kelvin).
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Blobrana


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Rotation Movie of Moon



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Blobrana


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Found: first 'skylight' on the moon
A deep hole on the moon that could open into a vast underground tunnel has been found for the first time. The discovery strengthens evidence for subsurface, lava-carved channels that could shield future human colonists from space radiation and other hazards.
The moon seems to possess long, winding tunnels called lava tubes that are similar to structures seen on Earth. They are created when the top of a stream of molten rock solidifies and the lava inside drains away, leaving a hollow tube of rock.

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Blobrana


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The moon may have been adopted by our planet instead of descended from it.
If a new twist on a decades-old theory is right, conditions in the early solar system suggest the moon formed inside Mercury's orbit and migrated out until it was roped into orbit around Earth.
The idea flies in the face of scientific consensus, known as the giant impact hypothesis, which holds that the moon formed from red-hot debris left over after a Mars-sized object collided with Earth around 4.5 billion years ago.
However, the moon has several curious traits that go unexplained with that theory, and Robert Malcuit of Denison University has argued for decades for an alternative view of our moon's history.
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Blobrana


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Possible lunar lava tube skylight observed by SELENE cameras
Researchers on JAXA's Kaguya lunar orbiter have discovered an open pit on the Moon that is likely a window onto a sublunar world -- a skylight into a subsurface cavern.
Junichi Haruyama, Kazuyuki Hioki, Motomaro Shirao, Tomokatsu Morota, Harald Hiesinger, Carolyn van der Bogert, Hideaki Miyamoto, Akira Iwasaki, Yasuhiro Yokots, Makiko Ohtake, Tsuneo Matsunaga, Seiichi Hara, Shunsuke Nakanotani, and Carlé Pieters describe the feature in a paper now in press in Geophysical Research Letters: "Possible lunar lava tube skylight observed by SELENE cameras."

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Blobrana


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The race back to the Moon has been prompted by the realisation that exploiting it may now be within reach. And it poses the question: who gets to use the moon's recoverable resources, such as oxygen or water?
This could be resolved through negotiation, as space scientists happily lodging their instruments in foreign spacecraft hope. But the Lunar Treaty drafted by the United Nations in the 1990s has still not been signed by the space powers. Since this leaves the moon unprotected by law - the ultimate terra nulla - we may now see a scramble for territory.
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Blobrana


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Earth's Moon has been around a lot longer than humans, but since our ancestors first peered into the night sky, billions of us have wondered: What exactly is the Moon made of?
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POLEMAP1b.jpg
Credit: NMSU/MSFC Tortugas Observatory

-- Edited by Blobrana on Friday 9th of October 2009 02:58:24 PM

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