Moon Base

Designed by Architects and Vision, MoonBaseTwo is a semi-permanent moon base which allows up to 4 astronauts to live there for 6 months. MoonBaseTwo is designed to be transported by the Ares V rocket. The base automatically deploys after landing and ready to accommodate astronauts.

Moon Base Two

photo: Mare Imbrium and Copernicus crater by the Apollo 17 Mission

PS: November 15, 2008 - At 8:34 pm Indian time Friday night (1504 UTC), India became the fourth country to land its flag on the Moon. The unmanned lunar orbiter Chandrayaan-1 (meaning 'Moon craft' in Sanskrit) ejected its Moon Impact Probe, which hurtled across the surface of the Moon at 1.5 kilometres per second (3000 miles per hour), and successfully crash landed near the Moon's south pole. Besides carrying three important scientific instruments, the lunar probe also carried the image of the Indian national flag, painted on all sides.

Smile

Appulse is an astronomical term that refers to the very near approach of one celestial object to another, as seen from a third body. Usually it refers to the close approach of two planets together in the sky, or of the Moon to a star or planet as the Moon follows its monthly orbit around Earth, as seen by an observer located on Earth. An "appulse" can also be referred to as a conjunction.
future conjunctions

photo credits
Jamie Russell
Rhoderic Lourens
Dave Jurasevich

atomic age

"We must abandon the unworkable notion that it is morally reprehensible for some countries to pursue weapons of mass destruction, yet morally acceptable for others to rely on them for security - and indeed to continue to refine their capacities and postulate plans for their use."

Mohamed ElBaradei - Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency

(pic: trinity test)

Спутник-1

4 October 1957

stellar bomb

Astronomers have been puzzling over the engine behind the historical 1843 outburst of Eta Carinae since it happened, but new observations with the Gemini South and the Blanco telescopes in Chile add a startling new clue. The new observations reveal faint but extremely fast material indicative of a powerful shock wave produced by the 1843 event, suggesting that its driving mechanism was an explosion rather than a steady wind. The research, led by Nathan Smith of the University of California, Berkeley, shows that the famous nebulosity around the star Eta Carinae contains extremely fast-moving filaments of material that had not been seen before, and are not explained by current theories. The result is featured in the September 11, 2008 issue of the journal Nature.

The Gemini spectroscopy, obtained with the Gemini Near-Infrared Spectrometer (GNIRS) helped confirm the high speed and geometry of this material and shows that the 1843 outburst released even more energy than previously estimated. In particular, the high speeds require that the 1843 event generated a shock wave analogous to a supernova-type event, but with less energy. The observations revealed far-flung material moving at more than three times faster than the fastest material seen previously (up to 3,500-6,000 kilometers/second). This work has implications for similar events observed in other galaxies where the resulting outbursts have not quite matched the energy of a supernova, and currently lack any theoretical explanation.

sorce: gemini observatory

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moon vs sun

CMCP

The Crew Mobility Chassis Prototype is NASA's new concept for a lunar truck. Researchers are trying it out at Moses Lake, Wash., this week as part of a series of tests of lunar surface concepts. One feature is its high mobility. Each set of wheels can pivot individually in any direction, giving the vehicle the ability to drive sideways, forward, backward and any direction in between -- important if the truck becomes mired in lunar dust, needs to zigzag down a steep crater wall or parallel park at its docking station. NASA currently is building the spacecraft and systems to return to the moon by 2020.

Image Credit: NASA/Sean Smith

Shadow of a Martian Robot

laser tests

A technician evaluates the interaction of multiple lasers that will be used aboard the Airborne Laser, a megawatt-class laser weapons system being developed to defend against ballistic missile attacks. The Directed Energy Directorate conducts research into beam-control technologies.

solar transit

(click for full view!)

Image of the solar transit of the International Space Station (ISS) and Space Shuttle Atlantis (50 minutes after undocking from the ISS, before return to Earth), taken from the area of Mamers (Normandie, France) on september 17th 2006 at 13h 38min 50s UT.

Tierry Legault (+)

somewhat peculiar

Orion

moon

photo credit: maximo ruiz (+)

photo session: storms from space

all photos courtesy by NASA

100th post and no one cares!