Astronomy

Have you seen the picture of the Earth and its Moon taken from 31 million miles (49.8 million kilometers) away? Here it is: This historic picture was taken by NASA’s Deep Impact spacecraft, as a part of the scientist’s effort to study alien worlds. It shows some specific features that are important for observations of Earth-like [...]

A total solar eclipse will took place on August 01, 2008. The eclipse is visible from within a narrow corridor that traverses half the Earth. The path of the Moon’s umbral shadow begins in Canada and extends across northern Greenland, the Arctic, central Russia, Mongolia, and China where it will end at sunset. A partial [...]

Recent study, published in the July 17 issue of Nature, shows that vast regions of the ancient highlands of Mars, which cover about half the planet, contain clay minerals, which can form only in the presence of water. Volcanic lavas buried the clay-rich regions during subsequent, drier periods of the planet’s history, but impact craters [...]

Pluto and Eris now have a new counterpart. On July 11, 2008, the IAU/USGS Working Group on Planetary Nomenclature included Makemake (136472 Makemake) in the plutoid class, makes it officially both a dwarf planet and a plutoid, alongside the two previously known objects. Discovered on March 31, 2005 by the team led by Michael Brown, the [...]

It is believed that the Moon was formed when a Mars-size body collided with Earth some 4.5 billion years ago. This “giant impact” melted both objects and sent molten debris into orbit around the Earth, some of which coalesced to form the Moon. Under this scenario, the heat from the giant impact would have vaporized [...]

The moon is only 1/4 the size of the earth, and its gravity is only 1/6 of that on earth. This made the U.S. astronauts, during their moon walks, 5/6 lighter than they were on earth. A person who weighed 90 kg on earth would weigh only 15 kg on the moon. Because of this [...]