Astronaut Thomas Stafford, commander of Apollo 10, has died at age 93
Astronaut Thomas P. Stafford, who commanded a dress rehearsal flight for the 1969 moon landing and the first U.S.-Soviet space linkup, died Monday. He was 93.
Astronaut Thomas P. Stafford, who commanded a dress rehearsal flight for the 1969 moon landing and the first U.S.-Soviet space linkup, died Monday. He was 93.
Space Exploration
6 hours ago
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On April 8, 2024, a total solar eclipse will be visible to more than 30 million people across North America. To help kids learn about solar eclipses, NASA is launching Snap It! An Eclipse Photo Adventure.
Planetary Sciences
Mar 11, 2024
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There is the dream of living and working on the moon or planet Mars. But what are the inhabitants going to eat out there, and how are they going to grow their food? A circular and sustainable agricultural ecosystem for food ...
Agriculture
Mar 7, 2024
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Like her ancestors before her, Emirati astronaut Nora AlMatrooshi has spent much of her life gazing up at the stars and dreaming of flying to the moon.
Space Exploration
Mar 7, 2024
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Using some of the largest telescopes in the world, including the Subaru Telescope, a team of astronomers discovered three new natural satellites orbiting the outermost planets in our solar system—one around Uranus and two ...
Astronomy
Mar 6, 2024
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157
The moon lander Odysseus, known as Odie, touched down on the moon's surface on February 22, becoming the first time the U.S. has landed on the moon in more than 50 years and the first commercial moon lander to successfully ...
Space Exploration
Mar 5, 2024
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New research suggests there's less oxygen on the icy surface of Jupiter's moon Europa than thought—and that could affect what if any life might be lurking in the moon's underground ocean.
Astronomy
Mar 4, 2024
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The first U.S. spacecraft to land on the moon since the Apollo astronauts fell silent Thursday, a week after breaking a leg at touchdown and tipping over near the lunar south pole.
Space Exploration
Mar 1, 2024
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An increasing number of seismologists are using fiber optic cables to detect seismic waves on Earth—but how would this technology fare on the moon, and what would it tell us about the deep layers of our nearest neighbor ...
Space Exploration
Feb 29, 2024
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The first private U.S. spacecraft to land on the moon broke a leg at touchdown before falling over, according to company officials who said Wednesday it was on the verge of losing power.
Space Exploration
Feb 29, 2024
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The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite and the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System. The average centre-to-centre distance from the Earth to the Moon is 384,403 km, about thirty times the diameter of the Earth. The common centre of mass of the system (the barycentre) is located about 1,700 km—a quarter the Earth's radius—beneath the surface of the Earth. The Moon makes a complete orbit around the Earth every 27.3 days (the orbital period), and the periodic variations in the geometry of the Earth–Moon–Sun system are responsible for the phases of the moon, which repeat every 29.5 days (the synodic period).
The Moon's diameter is 3,474 km, a little more than a quarter of that of the Earth. Thus, the Moon's surface area is less than a tenth that of the Earth (about a quarter the Earth's land area, approximately as large as Russia, Canada, and the United States combined), and its volume is about 2 percent that of Earth. The pull of gravity at its surface is about 17 percent of that at the Earth's surface.
The Moon is the only celestial body to which humans have traveled and upon which humans have performed a manned landing. While the Soviet Union's Luna program was the first to reach the Moon with unmanned spacecraft, the NASA Apollo program by the United States achieved the only manned missions to date, beginning with the first manned lunar mission by Apollo 8 in 1968, and six manned lunar landings between 1969 and 1972- the first being Apollo 11 in 1969. Human exploration of the Moon temporarily ceased with the conclusion of the Apollo program, although a few robotic landers and orbiters have been sent to the Moon since that time. The U.S. has committed to return to the moon by 2018.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA