News from the World

La NASA si unisce al Lunar XPRIZE

Tuesday, 17 August 2010 09:40 Last Updated on Tuesday, 17 August 2010 09:41 Written by Mattia Marenco

There are no translations available.

È risaputo che la NASA non intende investire nel ritorno dell’uomo sulla luna, ma nonostante ciò e infischiandosene dell’orgoglio ha annunciato che intende imparare da chi invece sulla luna ci andrà e per farlo è disposta a pagare. I beneficiari potrebbero essere le compagnie private che partecipano alla competizione sponsorizzata da Google ovvero il Lunar X Prize. Questo concorso, lanciato nel 2007, mette in palio 20 milioni di dollari che andaranno al primo ente non governativo in grado di far atterrare un rover robotico sulla luna, a patto che ci riesca entro il 2012. La competizione è già molto accesa e ci sono 21 gruppi in gara. Chi vincerà, oltre al denaro di Google, riceverà anche quello della NASA.

L’agenzia spaziale americana, dal canto suo, è molto interessata alle nuove tecnologie di atterraggio automatizzato che in questo momento le agenzie private sono molto incentivante a sviluppare. E se il lavoro lo fanno gli altri la NASA è disposta giustamente a pagare per avere il privilegio di guardare e copiare.

Fonte Urania

LCROSS Impact Data Indicates Water on Moon

Saturday, 14 November 2009 12:00 Last Updated on Saturday, 14 November 2009 16:42 Written by Mattia Marenco

The argument that the moon is a dry, desolate place no longer holds water.

Secrets the moon has been holding, for perhaps billions of years, are now being revealed to the delight of scientists and space enthusiasts alike.

NASA today opened a new chapter in our understanding of the moon. Preliminary data from the Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS, indicates that the mission successfully uncovered water during the Oct. 9, 2009 impacts into the permanently shadowed region of Cabeus cater near the moon’s south pole.

The impact created by the LCROSS Centaur upper stage rocket created a two-part plume of material from the bottom of the crater. The first part was a high angle plume of vapor and fine dust and the second a lower angle ejecta curtain of heavier material. This material has not seen sunlight in billions of years.

"We're unlocking the mysteries of our nearest neighbor and by extension the solar system. It turns out the moon harbors many secrets, and LCROSS has added a new layer to our understanding," said Michael Wargo, chief lunar scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

Scientists have long speculated about the source of vast quantities of hydrogen that have been observed at the lunar poles. The LCROSS findings are shedding new light on the question of water, which could be more widespread and in greater quantity than previously suspected.

NASA Instruments Reveal Water Molecules on Lunar Surface

Friday, 25 September 2009 08:10 Last Updated on Friday, 25 September 2009 18:20 Written by Mattia Marenco

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA scientists have discovered water molecules in the polar regions of the moon. Instruments aboard three separate spacecraft revealed water molecules in amounts that are greater than predicted, but still relatively small. Hydroxyl, a molecule consisting of one oxygen atom and one hydrogen atom, also was found in the lunar soil. The findings were published in Thursday's edition of the journal Science.

image of the Moon taken from the Moon Mineralogy Mapper _{These images show a very young lunar crater on the side of the moon that faces away from Earth, as viewed by NASA's Moon Mineralogy Mapper on the Indian Space Research Organization's Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft. Credits: ISRO/NASA/JPL-Caltech/USGS/Brown Univ.
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NASA's Moon Mineralogy Mapper, or M3, instrument reported the observations. M3 was carried into space on Oct. 22, 2008, aboard the Indian Space Research Organization's Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft. Data from the Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer, or VIMS, on NASA's Cassini spacecraft, and the High-Resolution Infrared Imaging Spectrometer on NASA's Epoxi spacecraft contributed to confirmation of the finding. The spacecraft imaging spectrometers made it possible to map lunar water more effectively than ever before.

LRO fotografa i siti di atterraggio Apollo

Wednesday, 23 September 2009 13:22 Last Updated on Wednesday, 23 September 2009 13:34 Written by Mattia Marenco

There are no translations available.

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, has returned its first imagery of the Apollo moon landing sites. The pictures show the Apollo missions' lunar module descent stages sitting on the moon's surface, as long shadows from a low sun angle make the modules' locations evident.

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera, or LROC, was able to image five of the six Apollo sites, with the remaining Apollo 12 site expected to be photographed in the coming weeks.

The satellite reached lunar orbit June 23 and captured the Apollo sites between July 11 and 15. Though it had been expected that LRO would be able to resolve the remnants of the Apollo mission, these first images came before the spacecraft reached its final mapping orbit. Future LROC images from these sites will have two to three times greater resolution.

Google Moon

Thursday, 09 July 2009 13:18 Last Updated on Wednesday, 23 September 2009 09:05 Written by Jacopo Giudici

There are no translations available.

Sito Google Moon con la mappa della luna.

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News from the World

La NASA si unisce al Lunar XPRIZE

LCROSS Impact Data Indicates Water on Moon

NASA Instruments Reveal Water Molecules on Lunar Surface

LRO fotografa i siti di atterraggio Apollo

Google Moon

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