Kicking up moon dust.

Hi everyone! An exciting event is scheduled for October 8th and/or 9th. LCROSS or Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite, will be sending its upper stage booster rocket flying toward the south pole of the moon. The impacts ejecta will be studied and analyzed for evidence of water in the moons crust. But enough of that science jargon the question you are probably asking is, "Can we see it?" The answer is "yes"; unfortunately if you do not own a fairly large telescope it may be tough if not impossible. But fear not the live video will be shown on NASA TV or you can contact your local Astronomical Society and see if they have arranged a viewing. The crater that is calculated to be the resting place for this upper tage rocket is Cabeus-A, it is near the southern pole of the moon. There is also tons of information if you click on the title of this post. I will be trying to upload a video of the impact here on Potspoon! for those of you that may have cloudy skies, no tv or telescope. So for now go study a moon chart, look up your local Astronomy club or find out where you can watch NASA TV. I will continue to update you later. :-)

-AstroTodd

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Mercury 7

This is a short one since it is a holiday and many people don't have too much free time.


50 years ago (April 9th, 1959) NASA introduced its first astronaut class, the Mercury Seven. The seven men were the first to prove that it was indeed possible for humans to work and live in space. Six of the seven men actually did Mercury missions. The seventh did an Apollo-Soyuz flight. Happy Friday!

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Mars Alive

This is going to be a short post, but something interesting. Today's post is brought to you by the planet Mars. This lonely forth planet is our red rocked neighbor and is named after a certain warmongering god. The dream of "martians" hasn't come true. No little green men live on the planet as everyone once hoped. Instead, we found traces of water, a face, some volcanoes, and really amazing features.

Everyone knows that Mars is a "dead planet." We have looked to Mars for traces of insight into our planet's origins. Well recently, a team of scientists at NASA discovered methane in the atmosphere which only has two explanations: biological activity or geological activity. Either one of these reasons would prove that Mars is not as dead as we thought.

Well, I hope you guys all have a safe Friday! Sorry this one is a short one!

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The Wind-Down of a "Stellar" Year

As the year comes to a close, there are many articles and scientific advances that really made news this year. Something that was not in the news as much as it should have been was NASA. The program itself has the tendency to be a bit controversial, but many do not realize how much benefit there has been from experiments done by NASA. Even more exciting, NASA celebrated it's 50th birthday this year just like my mom! To give our space program some recognition, I am going to give you some of the highlights of this year's events based on news at the NASA website.

• The International Space Station nears completion on its 10th anniversary. Four shuttle missions went up with modules added increasing the size and capabilities of the station. The space station is now the size of a large five bedroom house.

• Phoenix landed on mars in May. It sent back more than 25,000 images back to Earth. This amazing piece of machinery also determined soil alkalinity, weather patterns, tested for water evidence, and more.

• Using satellites, scientists at NASA continued their study of the disappearance of sea ice. The levels hit record lows this year despite people heralding a colder year in temperatures. There is lots of science on how this goes hand in hand, but that is better saved for a paper. :D

• NASA helped design swimsuits worn at the Olympic Games. NASA researchers tested a variety of fabrics in a low-speed wind tunnel.

Well, these were my favorite highlights of the year from NASA. You can find more here. Don't forget to vote for your favorite story while you're there. Just for those of you who were paying attention, what was your favorite "newsworthy" science moment of the year? You can pick anything, even from Potspoon! if you'd like. I would really like to know!

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Photo is in the Public Domain and was found here.

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