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Project Moon-Blink
Project Moon-Blink was a draft NASA created in 1965-1966, for the exploration of unusual phenomena (anomalies) on the surface of the Moon. Work performed by Trident Engineering Associates (Annapolis, Maryland) under contract NAS 5-9613 dated June 1, 1965, Goddard Space Flight Center (Greenbelt, Maryland). Project goals and objectives * Development of devices to improve observation of unusual color occurrences on the moon in order to record and identify such phenomena. * Lunar surveillance program via telescope employing this especially designed equipment. History In a report issued by NASA in October 1966, the background is described as follows: There have been some puzzling reports over the years. Before 1843 astronomers listed Linne as a normal but steep-walled crater about five miles in diameter. In 1866 Schmidt, a famed astronomer, reported that Linne was not a crater at all but looked more like a whitish cloud. Later observers disagreed with both descriptions, saying i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States's civil list of government space agencies, space program, aeronautics research and outer space, space research. National Aeronautics and Space Act, Established in 1958, it succeeded the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) to give the American space development effort a distinct civilian orientation, emphasizing peaceful applications in space science. It has since led most of America's space exploration programs, including Project Mercury, Project Gemini, the 1968–1972 Apollo program missions, the Skylab space station, and the Space Shuttle. Currently, NASA supports the International Space Station (ISS) along with the Commercial Crew Program and oversees the development of the Orion (spacecraft), Orion spacecraft and the Sp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Transient Lunar Phenomenon
A transient lunar phenomenon (TLP) or lunar transient phenomenon (LTP) is a short-lived change in light, color or appearance on the surface of the Moon. The term was created by Patrick Moore in his co-authorship of NASA Technical Report R-277 ''Chronological Catalog of Reported Lunar Events'', published in 1968. Claims of short-lived lunar phenomena go back at least 1,000 years, with some having been observed independently by multiple witnesses or reputable scientists. Nevertheless, the majority of transient lunar phenomenon reports are Reproducibility, irreproducible and do not possess adequate Experimental control, control experiments that could be used to distinguish among alternative hypotheses to explain their origins. Most lunar scientists will acknowledge that transient events such as outgassing and impact craters, impact cratering do occur over lunar geologic timescale, geologic time. The controversy lies in the frequency of such events. Description of events Reports of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Moon
The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It Orbit of the Moon, orbits around Earth at Lunar distance, an average distance of (; about 30 times Earth diameter, Earth's diameter). The Moon rotation, rotates, with a rotation period (lunar day) that is synchronized to its orbital period (Lunar month#Synodic month, lunar month) of 29.5 Earth days. This is the product of Earth's gravitation having tidal forces, tidally pulled on the Moon until one part of it stopped rotating away from the near side of the Moon, near side, making always the same lunar surface face Earth. Conversley, the gravitational pull of the Moon, on Earth, is the main driver of Earth's tides. In geophysical definition of planet, geophysical terms, the Moon is a planetary-mass object or satellite planet. Its mass is 1.2% that of the Earth, and its diameter is , roughly one-quarter of Earth's (about as wide as the contiguous United States). Within the Solar System, it is the List of Solar System objects by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Annapolis
Annapolis ( ) is the capital of the U.S. state of Maryland. It is the county seat of Anne Arundel County and its only incorporated city. Situated on the Chesapeake Bay at the mouth of the Severn River, south of Baltimore and about east of Washington, D.C., Annapolis forms part of the Baltimore–Washington metropolitan area. The 2020 United States census, 2020 census recorded its population as 40,812, an increase of 6.3% since 2010. This city served as the seat of the Confederation Congress, formerly the Second Continental Congress, and temporary national capital of the United States in 1783–1784. At that time, General George Washington came before the body convened in the new Maryland State House and George Washington's resignation as commander-in-chief, resigned his commission as commander of the Continental Army. A month later, the Congress ratified the Treaty of Paris (1783), Treaty of Paris of 1783, ending the American Revolutionary War, with Kingdom of Great Brita ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maryland
Maryland ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It borders the states of Virginia to its south, West Virginia to its west, Pennsylvania to its north, and Delaware to its east, as well as with the Atlantic Ocean to its east, and the national capital and federal district of Washington, D.C. to the southwest. With a total area of , Maryland is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, ninth-smallest state by land area, and its population of 6,177,224 ranks it the List of U.S. states and territories by population, 18th-most populous state and the List of states and territories of the United States by population density, fifth-most densely populated. Maryland's capital city is Annapolis, Maryland, Annapolis, and the state's most populous city is Baltimore. Maryland's coastline was first explored by Europeans in the 16th century. Prior to that, it was inhabited by several Native Americans in the United States ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Linné (crater)
Linné is a small Lunar craters, lunar impact crater located in the western Mare Serenitatis. It was named after Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus. The Lunar mare, mare around this feature is virtually devoid of other features of interest. The nearest named crater is Banting (crater), Banting to the east-southeast. The estimated age of this Copernican period, copernican crater is only a few tens of millions of years. It was earlier believed to have a bowl shape, but data from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, LRO showed that it has a shape of a flattened, inverted cone. The crater is surrounded by a blanket of ejecta formed during the original impact. This ejecta has a relatively high albedo, making the feature appear bright. In 1824 Wilhelm Lohrmann (1786-1840) of Dresden had drawn Linné as an 8 km diameter crater in his acclaimed lunar atlas, and in 1837 Wilhelm Beer and Johann Heinrich Mädler had described Linne in ''Der Mond'' as a 10 km crater. In 1866, the experienc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Johann Friedrich Julius Schmidt
Johann Friedrich Julius Schmidt (25 October 1825 in Eutin, German Confederation, Germany – 7 February 1884 in Athens, Kingdom of Greece (Glücksburg), Greece) was a German astronomer and geophysicist. He was the director of the National Observatory of Athens in Greece from 1858 to 1884. Julius Schmidt was tireless in his work, it was suggested by William Henry Pickering that he perhaps devoted more of his life than any other man to the study of the Moon. During his lifetime, he made some of the most complete lunar maps of the 19th century. According to his own analysis, he mapped no less than 32,856 craters, with Mädler mapping 7,735 and Wilhelm Gotthelf Lohrmann, Lohrmann 7,177. Schmidt also mapped 348 lunar Rille, rilles. In six years, he made almost 57,000 micrometer settings to make 3050 height measurements of the terrain. Biography Early life Schmidt was born in the town of Eutin to his father Carl Friedrich Schmidt, a glazier and his mother Maria Elisabeth Quirling. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Patrick Moore
Sir Patrick Alfred Caldwell-Moore (; 4 March 1923 – 9 December 2012) was an English amateur astronomer who attained prominence in that field as a writer, researcher, radio commentator and television presenter. Moore's early interest in astronomy led him to join the British Astronomical Association at the age of 11. He served in the Royal Air Force during World War II and briefly taught before publishing his first book on lunar observation in 1953. Renowned for his expertise in Moon observation and the creation of the Caldwell catalogue, Moore authored more than seventy astronomy books. He hosted the world's longest-running television series with the original presenter, BBC's '' The Sky at Night'', from 1957 until his death in 2012. Idiosyncrasies such as his rapid diction and monocle made him a popular and instantly recognisable figure on British television. Moore was co-founder and president of the Society for Popular Astronomy. Outside his field of astronomy, Moore appe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aristarchus (crater)
Aristarchus is a Lunar craters, lunar impact crater that lies in the northwest part of the Moon's near side. It is considered the brightest of the large formations on the lunar surface, with an albedo nearly double that of most lunar features. The feature is bright enough to be visible to the naked eye, and displays unusually bright features when viewed through a large telescope. It is also readily identified when most of the lunar surface is illuminated by planetshine, earthshine. The crater is deeper than the Grand Canyon. The crater is named after the Greek astronomer Aristarchus of Samos. It is located at the southeastern edge of the Aristarchus plateau, an elevated area that contains a number of volcanic features, such as sinuous rilles. This area is also noted for the large number of reported transient lunar phenomena, as well as recent emissions of radon gas as measured by the Lunar Prospector spacecraft. Selenography Aristarchus is located on the Aristarchus platea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alphonsus (crater)
Alphonsus is an ancient impact crater on the Moon that dates from the pre-Nectarian era. (Older sources state that it is Nectarian in age.) It is located on the lunar highlands on the eastern end of Mare Nubium, west of the Imbrian Highlands, and slightly overlaps the crater Ptolemaeus to the north. To the southwest is the smaller Alpetragius. The crater name was approved by the IAU in 1935. Description The surface of Alphonsus is broken and irregular along its boundary with Ptolemaeus. The outer walls are slightly distorted and possess a somewhat hexagonal form. A low ridge system of deposited ejecta bisects the crater floor, and includes the steep central peak designated Alphonsus Alpha (α). This pyramid-shaped formation rises to a height of 1.5 km above the interior surface. It is not volcanic in origin, but rather is made of anorthosite like the lunar highlands. The floor is fractured by an elaborate system of rilles and contains four or five smaller craters ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zdeněk Kopal
Zdeněk Kopal (; 4 April 1914 – 23 June 1993) was a Czechoslovak astronomer who mainly worked in England. Kopal was born and grew up in Litomyšl (Czechoslovakia, now Czech Republic). In his early astronomical career, he studied variable stars and in particular close eclipsing binary stars. He attended University of Cambridge, Cambridge University in 1938 and later that year he went to Harvard College Observatory. After the war he became head of the astronomy department at the University of Manchester. He later assisted NASA with the Apollo program as an external expert. He was editor-in-chief of the journal ''Astrophysics and Space Science'' since its foundation in 1968 until his death in 1993. The asteroid 2628 Kopal was named in his honor. Monographs * Zdeněk Kopal: ''An introduction to the study of eclipsing variables.'' Harvard University Press, Cambridge (MA) 1946. * Zdeněk Kopal: ''Close binary systems.'' Chapman & Hall, London 1959. * Zdeněk Kopal: ''The moon. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Astronomical Imaging
Astrophotography, also known as astronomical imaging, is the photography or imaging of astronomical objects, celestial events, or areas of the night sky. The first photograph of an astronomical object (the Moon) was taken in 1839, but it was not until the late 19th century that advances in technology allowed for detailed stellar photography. Besides being able to record the details of extended objects such as the Moon, Sun, and planets, modern astrophotography has the ability to image objects outside of the visible spectrum of the human eye such as dim stars, nebulae, and galaxies. This is accomplished through long time exposure as both film and digital cameras can accumulate and sum photons over long periods of time or using specialized optical filters which limit the photons to a certain wavelength. Photography using extended exposure-times revolutionized the field of professional astronomical research, recording hundreds of thousands of new stars, and nebulae invisible to th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
