Category Archives: The moon

How and when to watch the solar eclipse on Thursday

Posted on by

The moon will partially cover the sun in the UK later this week, but some parts of the northern hemisphere will experience a total eclipse

This Thursday, Greenland, Iceland, the Arctic, most of Europe, much of North America and Asia will experience a solar eclipse.

Most will see a partial eclipse, where the moon takes a bite out of the sun. From a few specific places in Russia, Greenland and Canada, the event will be visible as an annular eclipse, which occurs when the moon is located near the furthest part of its orbit around the Earth.

Continue reading...

Michael Collins obituary

Posted on by

Astronaut and pilot of the command module Columbia during 1969’s Apollo 11 mission

On 20 July 1969, Michael Collins, who has died aged 90, became the most solitary human in the universe – even if he derided that categorisation as “phony philosophy”. He orbited the moon alone, inside Apollo 11’s command module Columbia, and out of touch with ground control for 48 minutes on each orbit. Meanwhile, and more famously, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were becoming the first men to set foot on that rock, some 240,000 miles away from Earth.

As the command module pilot, on $17,000 a year, Collins was, he later wrote half-jokingly, “the navigator, the guidance and control expert, the base-camp operator, the owner of the leaky plumbing – all the things I was least interested in doing”. He was also, thought Aldrin, probably Nasa’s best-trained command module pilot.

Continue reading...

China and Russia unveil joint plan for lunar space station

Posted on by

Russian space agency Roscomos and Chinese counterpart CNSA to develop research facilities on surface of moon or in its orbit

Russia and China have unveiled plans for a joint lunar space station, with the Russian space agency Roscomos saying it has signed an agreement with China’s National Space Administration (CNSA) to develop a “complex of experimental research facilities created on the surface and/or in the orbit of the moon”.

The CNSA, for its part, said the project was “open to all interested countries and international partners” in what experts said would be China’s biggest international space cooperation project to date.

Continue reading...

Chinese spacecraft carrying rocks and soil from the moon returns safely

Posted on by

Unmanned Chang’e-5 probe returns to Earth after first mission in four decades to collect lunar samples

An unmanned Chinese spacecraft carrying rocks and soil from the moon returned safely to Earth early on Thursday (local time) in the first mission in four decades to collect lunar samples, the Xinhua news agency said.

The capsule carrying the samples collected by the Chang’e-5 space probe landed in northern China’s Inner Mongolia region, Xinhua said, quoting the China National Space Administration (CNSA). The director of CNSA, Zhang Kejian, declared the mission a success, Xinhua added.

Continue reading...

SpaceX Starship SN8 explodes on landing after test flight

Posted on by

Elon Musk tweets ‘Mars here we come’ after fireball engulfs prototype

SpaceX’s Starship prototype has exploded while attempting to land after its test launch from the company’s rocket facility in Boca Chica, Texas. Live video of Wednesday’s test showed the self-guided rocket landing at speed following a controlled descent before disappearing in a ball of flame.

Despite the catastrophic end to the six-and-a-half-minute test, SpaceX entrepreneur Elon Musk was thrilled. “Mars, here we come!!” he tweeted.

Continue reading...

Jeff Bezos: Blue Origin space company will take first woman to the moon

Posted on by
  • Amazon owner seeks Nasa lunar lander contract
  • Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Dynetics also in competition

Jeff Bezos’ space company Blue Origin will take the first woman to the moon, the billionaire said as Nasa nears a decision over who will supply its first privately built lunar landers, meant to be capable of sending astronauts to the moon by 2024.

Related: Japan’s Hayabusa2 capsule returns to Earth carrying asteroid samples

Continue reading...

China to collect first moon rocks since 1970s after successful probe landing

Posted on by

Chang’e-5 spacecraft completes 112-hour journey from Earth, according to Beijing’s space agency

A Chinese probe sent to the moon to bring back the first lunar samples in four decades has successfully landed, according to Beijing’s space agency.

China has poured billions into its military-run space programme, with hopes of having a crewed space station by 2022 and eventually sending humans to the moon.

Continue reading...

China launches Chang’e-5 mission to bring back rocks from moon

Posted on by

Lunar landing is due in about eight days and entire mission is scheduled to last 23 days

China has launched a robotic spacecraft to bring back rocks from the moon – the first such attempt by any country since the 1970s.

The Long March-5, China’s largest carrier rocket, blasted off at 4.30am Beijing time on Tuesday from Wenchang space launch centre on the island of Hainan carrying the Chang’e-5 spacecraft.

Continue reading...

Water exists on the moon, scientists confirm

Posted on by

Proof of significant amounts of H2O has implications for future lunar missions

Scientists have gathered some of the most compelling evidence yet for the existence of water on the moon – and it may be relatively accessible. The discovery has implications for future missions to the moon and deeper space exploration.

With no significant atmosphere insulating it from the sun’s rays, it had been assumed that the moon’s surface was dry – until the 1990s, when orbiting spacecraft found indications of ice in large and inaccessible craters near the moon’s poles.

Continue reading...

Talking on the moon: Nasa and Nokia to install 4G on lunar surface

Posted on by

Move is part of US space agency’s plan to establish a long-term human presence on the moon by 2030

With competition among Earth’s telecoms providers as fierce as ever, equipment maker Nokia has announced its expansion into a new market, winning a deal to install the first cellular network on the moon.

The Finnish equipment manufacturer said it was selected by Nasa to deploy an “ultra-compact, low-power, space-hardened” wireless 4G network on the lunar surface, as part of the US space agency’s plan to establish a long-term human presence on the moon by 2030.

Continue reading...

Drain brain: Nasa offers prize money for best lunar loo design

Posted on by

Agency hopes to attract novel solutions for its Artemis mission to the moon in 2024

“It certainly isn’t the prime focus of the mission,” said Nasa’s Mike Interbartolo. “We’re not going back to the moon so we can say we pooped on the moon, but we don’t want an Apollo situation either.”

Interbartolo, is project manager for the Lunar Loo Challenge, a Nasa competition launched on Thursday that hopes to attract new and innovative solutions to the problem of capturing and containing human waste in space.

Continue reading...

Nasa picks Bezos’s Blue Origin and Musk’s SpaceX to build new lunar landers

Posted on by

Alabama company Dynetics also chosen for moon landing project, as three firms prepare to compete

Nasa has selected three private space companies to lead the development of lunar landers for its forthcoming moon landings.

The three companies are Blue Origin, owned by Amazon’s CEO, Jeff Bezos; Elon Musk’s SpaceX; and Dynetics, based in Huntsville, Alabama, Nasa announced on Thursday.

Continue reading...

Trump order encourages US to mine the moon

Posted on by

Executive order says US will oppose any international effort to bar it from removing chunks of moon, Mars or elsewhere in space

The world may be racked by the coronavirus, but Donald Trump has less earthly concerns on his mind, too, after signing an executive order encouraging the US to mine the moon for minerals.

The executive order makes clear that the US doesn’t view space as a “global commons”, opening the way for the mining of the moon without any sort of international treaty.

Continue reading...

Chandrayaan-3: India unveils fresh $35m attempt to put a rover on the moon

Posted on by

Space programme seeks to bounce back after 2019 project ended with a crash landing on the lunar surface

India plans to make a fresh attempt at an unmanned mission on the moon this year, the head of the country’s space programme has said, after a 2019 bid ended in a crash landing.

Work was going “smoothly” on the Chandrayaan-3 mission to put a rover probe on the moon’s surface, Indian Space Research Organisation chairman K Sivan said. “We are targeting the launch for this year but it may spillover to next year,” Sivan said. Indian sources said authorities had set November as a provisional target for launch.

Continue reading...

International Space Station astronauts play with fire for research

Posted on by

Tests to study behaviour of flames in zero gravity suggest fires could be more dangerous on moon than Earth

Playing with fire can be dangerous and never more so than when confined in a space capsule floating 250 miles above the Earth. But in the past week astronauts onboard the International Space Station have intentionally lit a series of blazes in research designed to study the behaviour of flames in zero gravity.

The scientists behind the experiment, called Confined Combustion, say it will help improve fire safety on the ISS and on future lunar missions by helping predict how a blaze might progress in low gravity conditions.

Continue reading...

India’s crashed Vikram moon lander spotted on lunar surface

Posted on by

Nasa satellite sends back images showing wreckage of Chandrayaan-2 mission, with debris found scattered nearly a kilometre away

A Nasa satellite orbiting the moon has found India’s Vikram lander, which crashed on the lunar surface in September, the US space agency said on Monday.

Nasa released an image taken by its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) that showed the site of the spacecraft’s impact and associated debris field, with parts scattered over almost two dozen locations spanning several kilometres.

Continue reading...

India moon mission: Vikram lunar lander found on surface

Posted on by

Efforts are underway to establish contact, days after communications were lost during failed landing

The lander module from India’s moon mission has been located on the lunar surface, the day after it lost contact with the space station, and efforts are underway to try to establish contact with it, the head of the nation’s space agency said.

The cameras from the moon mission’s orbiter had located the lander, said K. Sivan, the chairman of the Indian Space and Research Organisation (ISRO) according to the Press Trust of India news agency. He added: “It must have been a hard landing.”

Continue reading...

Tardigrades may have survived spacecraft crashing on moon

Posted on by

Scientists believe the Beresheet’s unusual cargo may be alive and well on the moon

The odds of finding life on the moon have suddenly rocketed skywards. But rather than elusive alien moonlings, the beings in question came from Earth and were spilled across the landscape when a spacecraft crashed into the surface.

The Israeli Beresheet probe was meant to be the first private lander to touch down on the moon. And all was going smoothly until mission controllers lost contact in April as the robotic craft made its way down. Beyond all the technology that was lost in the crash, Beresheet had an unusual cargo: a few thousand tiny tardigrades, the toughest animals on Earth.

Continue reading...

India’s Chandrayaan-2 moon mission lifts off a week after aborted launch

Posted on by

With first mission to land on lunar south pole, India aims to join club comprising Russia, US and China

India’s mission to the moon has blasted into space one week after a technical glitch forced scientists to abruptly halt its scheduled launch.

Thousands gathered to watch Chandrayaan-2 take off at 2.43pm local time (0913 GMT) on Monday from Satish Dhawan space centre in Sriharikota, north of Chennai.

Continue reading...