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Lunar Day
A lunar day is the time it takes for Earth's Moon to complete on its axis one synodic rotation, meaning with respect to the Sun. Informally, a lunar day and a lunar night is each approximately 14 Earth days. The formal lunar day is therefore the time of a full lunar day-night cycle. Due to tidal locking, this equals the time that the Moon takes to complete one synodic orbit around Earth, a synodic lunar month, returning to the same lunar phase. The synodic period is about 29.53 Earth days, which is about 2.2 days longer than its sidereal period. Main definition Relative to the fixed stars on the celestial sphere, the Moon takes 27 Earth days, 7 hours, 43 minutes, 12 seconds to complete one orbit; however, since the Earth–Moon system advances around the Sun at the same time, the Moon must travel farther to return to the same phase. On average, this synodic period lasts 29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes, 3 seconds, the length of a lunar month on Earth. The exact length ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lunation Animation November 2009
In lunar calendars, a lunar month is the time between two successive syzygies of the same type: new moons or full moons. The precise definition varies, especially for the beginning of the month. Variations In Shona, Middle Eastern, and European traditions, the month starts when the young crescent moon first becomes visible, at evening, after conjunction with the Sun one or two days before that evening (e.g., in the Islamic calendar). In ancient Egypt, the lunar month began on the day when the waning moon could no longer be seen just before sunrise. Others run from full moon to full moon. Yet others use calculation, of varying degrees of sophistication, for example, the Hebrew calendar, the Chinese calendar, or the ecclesiastical lunar calendar. Calendars count integer days, so months may be 29 or 30 days in length, in some regular or irregular sequence. Lunar cycles are prominent, and calculated with great precision in the ancient Hindu Panchangam calendar, widely used i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lunar Month
In lunar calendars, a lunar month is the time between two successive syzygies of the same type: new moons or full moons. The precise definition varies, especially for the beginning of the month. Variations In Shona, Middle Eastern, and European traditions, the month starts when the young crescent moon first becomes visible, at evening, after conjunction with the Sun one or two days before that evening (e.g., in the Islamic calendar). In ancient Egypt, the lunar month began on the day when the waning moon could no longer be seen just before sunrise. Others run from full moon to full moon. Yet others use calculation, of varying degrees of sophistication, for example, the Hebrew calendar, the Chinese calendar, or the ecclesiastical lunar calendar. Calendars count integer days, so months may be 29 or 30 days in length, in some regular or irregular sequence. Lunar cycles are prominent, and calculated with great precision in the ancient Hindu Panchangam calendar, widely us ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lunar Calendar
A lunar calendar is a calendar based on the monthly cycles of the Moon's phases ( synodic months, lunations), in contrast to solar calendars, whose annual cycles are based on the solar year, and lunisolar calendars, whose lunar months are brought into alignment with the solar year through some process of intercalationsuch as by insertion of a leap month. The most widely observed lunar calendar is the Islamic calendar. The details of when months begin vary from calendar to calendar, with some using new, full, or crescent moons and others employing detailed calculations. Since each lunation is approximately days, (which gives a mean synodic month as 29.53059 days or 29 days 12 hours 44 minutes and 3 seconds) it is common for the months of a lunar calendar to alternate between 29 and 30 days. Since the period of 12 such lunations, a lunar year, is 354 days, 8 hours, 48 minutes, 34 seconds (354.36707 days), lunar calendars are 11 to 12 day ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yutu-2
''Yutu-2'' () is the robotic lunar rover component of China National Space Administration, CNSA's Chang'e 4 mission to the Moon, launched on 7 December 2018 18:23 UTC, it entered lunar orbit on 12 December 2018 before making the first soft landing on the far side of the Moon on 3 January 2019. ''Yutu-2'' is currently operational as the longest-lived lunar rover after it eclipsed (on 20 November 2019) the previous lunar longevity record of 321 Earth days held by Soviet Union's ''Lunokhod 1'' rover. ''Yutu-2'' is the first lunar rover to traverse the far side of the Moon. By January 2022, it had travelled a distance of more than along the lunar surface. Data from its ground penetrating radar (GPR) has been used by scientists to put together imagery of multiple layers deep beneath the surface of the far side of the Moon. As of September 2024, the ''Yutu-2'' was still active. Overview The total landing mass is . Both the stationary lander and ''Yutu-2'' rover (literally: "Moon r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Luna Programme
The Luna programme (from the Russian word "Moon, Luna" meaning "Moon"), occasionally called ''Lunik'' by western media, was a series of robotic spacecraft missions sent to the Moon by the Soviet Union between 1959 and 1976. The programme accomplished many Timeline of space exploration, firsts in space exploration, including Luna 1, first flyby of the Moon, Luna 2, first impact of the Moon and Luna 3, first photos of the far side of the Moon. Each mission was designed as either an orbiter or Lander (spacecraft), lander. They also performed many experiments, studying the Moon's chemical composition, gravity, temperature, and radiation. Twenty-four spacecraft were formally given the Luna designation, although more were launched. Those that failed to reach orbit were not publicly acknowledged at the time, and not assigned a Luna number. Those that failed in low Earth orbit were usually given Kosmos (satellite), Cosmos designations. The estimated cost of the Luna programme in 196 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lunar Rover
A lunar rover or Moon rover is a space exploration Rover (space exploration), vehicle designed to move across the surface of the Moon. The Apollo program's Lunar Roving Vehicle was driven on the Moon by members of three American crews, Apollo 15, Apollo 16, 16, and Apollo 17, 17. Other rovers have been partially or fully autonomous robots, such as the Soviet Union's Lunokhods, Chinese ''Yutu (rover), Yutus'', Indian ''Pragyan (Chandrayaan-3), Pragyan'', and Japan's Smart Lander for Investigating Moon#Rovers, LEVs. Five countries have had operating rovers on the Moon: the Soviet Union, the United States, China, India, and Japan. Variations in design Lunar rover designs have varied in several ways. Size and speed Lunokhod rovers were in length. The LRVs were long with a wheelbase, and achieved a top speed of during Apollo 17. Power The Lunokhod rovers, and others, used photovoltaic solar power. The LRV rovers were battery powered. Lunokhod and the Chinese ''Yutu'' rovers ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
NOAA
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA ) is an American scientific and regulatory agency charged with forecasting weather, monitoring oceanic and atmospheric conditions, charting the seas, conducting deep-sea exploration, and managing fishing and protection of marine mammals and endangered species in the US exclusive economic zone. The agency is part of the United States Department of Commerce and is headquartered in Silver Spring, Maryland. History NOAA traces its history back to multiple agencies, some of which are among the earliest in the federal government: * United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, formed in 1807 * Weather Bureau of the United States, formed in 1870 * Bureau of Commercial Fisheries, formed in 1871 (research fleet only) * Coast and Geodetic Survey Corps, formed in 1917 The most direct predecessor of NOAA was the Environmental Science Services Administration (ESSA), into which several existing scientific agencies such as the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prograde Motion
Retrograde motion in astronomy is, in general, orbital or rotational motion of an object in the direction opposite the rotation of its primary, that is, the central object (right figure). It may also describe other motions such as precession or nutation of an object's rotational axis. Prograde or direct motion is more normal motion in the same direction as the primary rotates. However, "retrograde" and "prograde" can also refer to an object other than the primary if so described. The direction of rotation is determined by an inertial frame of reference, such as distant fixed stars. In the Solar System, the orbits around the Sun of all planets and dwarf planets and most small Solar System bodies, except many comets and few distant objects, are prograde. They orbit around the Sun in the same direction as the sun rotates about its axis, which is counterclockwise when observed from above the Sun's north pole. Except for Venus and Uranus, planetary rotations around their axis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Culmination
In observational astronomy, culmination is the passage of a celestial object (such as the Sun, the Moon, a planet, a star, constellation or a deep-sky object) across the observer's local meridian. These events are also known as meridian transits, used in timekeeping and navigation, and measured precisely using a transit telescope. During each day, every celestial object appears to move along a circular path on the celestial sphere due to the Earth's rotation creating two moments when it crosses the meridian. Except at the geographic poles, any celestial object passing through the meridian has an upper culmination, when it reaches its highest point (the moment when it is nearest to the zenith), and nearly twelve hours later, is followed by a lower culmination, when it reaches its lowest point (nearest to the nadir). The time of ''culmination'' (when the object culminates) is often used to mean upper culmination. An object's altitude (''A'') in degrees at its upper culmin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Moonrise And Moonset
Moonrise and moonset are times when the upper limb of the Moon appears above the horizon and disappears below it, respectively. The exact times depend on the lunar phase and declination, as well as the observer's location. As viewed from outside the polar circles, the Moon, like all other celestial objects outside the circumpolar circle, rises from the eastern half of the horizon and sets into the western half due to Earth's rotation. Direction and time Direction Since Earth rotates eastward, all celestial objects outside the circumpolar circle (including the Sun, Moon, and stars) rise in the east and set in the west for observers outside the polar circles. Seasonal variation means that they sometimes rise in the east-northeast or east-southeast, and sometimes set in the west-southwest or west-northwest. This north-south variation of the point along the horizon is bookended by two lunar standstills or turnarounds, the directions of which are sometimes depicted in archa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Earthshine
Earthlight is the diffuse reflection of sunlight reflected from Earth's surface and clouds. Earthshine (an example of planetshine), also known as the Moon's ashen glow, is the dim illumination of the otherwise unilluminated portion of the Moon by this indirect sunlight. Earthlight on the Moon during the waxing crescent is called "the old Moon in the new Moon's arms", while that during the waning crescent is called "the new Moon in the old Moon's arms". Visibility At Earth Earthlight has a calculated maximum apparent magnitude of −17.7 as viewed from the Moon. When the Earth is at maximum phase, the total radiance at the lunar surface is approximately from Earthlight. This is only 0.01% of the radiance from direct Sunlight. Earthshine has a calculated maximum apparent magnitude of −3.69 as viewed from Earth. This phenomenon is most visible from Earth at night (or astronomical twilight) a few days before or after the day of new moon, when the lunar phase is a thin crescent. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Solar System
The Solar SystemCapitalization of the name varies. The International Astronomical Union, the authoritative body regarding astronomical nomenclature, specifies capitalizing the names of all individual astronomical objects but uses mixed "Solar System" and "solar system" structures in theinaming guidelines document. The name is commonly rendered in lower case ('solar system'), as, for example, in the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' an''Merriam-Webster's 11th Collegiate Dictionary''. is the gravitationally bound Planetary system, system of the Sun and the objects that orbit it. It Formation and evolution of the Solar System, formed about 4.6 billion years ago when a dense region of a molecular cloud collapsed, forming the Sun and a protoplanetary disc. The Sun is a typical star that maintains a hydrostatic equilibrium, balanced equilibrium by the thermonuclear fusion, fusion of hydrogen into helium at its stellar core, core, releasing this energy from its outer photosphere. As ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
