Explosion on the Moon!

Pock-marked with craters and splotched with long-cold beds of dark lava, our moon holds thousands of footprints from its violent past. But we don’t really think of it having a violent present.

Well, it still gets its fair share of action. On March 17, 2013, NASA astronomers captured video of a meteorite striking the moon. It made an explosion bright enough to be seen with the naked eye, like a temporary star drawn on the lunar surface. It turns out that these collisions are not that rare.

Most of the moon’s many meteor marks date from a period known as the Late Heavy Bombardment. That, combined with a magma-riffic adolescence gave the moon the special look we know today. Of course, none of that is as violent as the moon’s birth.

Anyway, make sure to watch that video above and see the meteor strike live. You’ll never look at the moon the same way again.

mucholderthen: Topographical Map of the Moon centering on the south pole Colors represent altitude: purple (over 9,000 metres below surface level), blue (3,000 below), green (zero altitude), yellow (2,000 metres above surface level), orange (4,000 metres above) red (8,200 metres above). A massive impact crater known as South Pole - Aitken basin is seen here as the purple and dark blue patch just below the south pole and is 2,500 kilometers in diameter. Picture: SPL / Barcroft Media (via X ) You can’t begin to appreciate the violent history of the moon until you see it like this.
Pop-upView Separately

mucholderthen:

Topographical Map of the Moon centering on the south pole

Colors represent altitude:

  • purple (over 9,000 metres below surface level),
  • blue (3,000 below),
  • green (zero altitude),
  • yellow (2,000 metres above surface level),
  • orange (4,000 metres above)
  • red (8,200 metres above).

A massive impact crater known as South Pole - Aitken basin is seen here as the purple and dark blue patch just below the south pole and is 2,500 kilometers in diameter.

Picture: SPL / Barcroft Media (via X )

You can’t begin to appreciate the violent history of the moon until you see it like this.

(via science-junkie)

Source: telegraph.co.uk

Not quite a scene from E.T., but close … What a stunning shot of the moon! Not only does this perfectly capture the optical oddities of the “moon illusion” (why the moon looks bigger near the horizon), but when you think about the sheer technical mastery that went in to making it happen … WOW! Philipp Schmidli (his website, in German) set up on a hillside a kilometer away so he could get this angle, after scouting the perfect spot on foot using GPS. To get the photo he needed to use a 1200 mm focal length, which is like a reverse-sniper-rifle of optical input. The moon illusion is enhanced by that telephoto trick, too, but you can head over to io9 if you want to dig into the technical details (several commenters there have done a good job with it). But wow.
Pop-upView Separately

Not quite a scene from E.T., but close …

What a stunning shot of the moon! Not only does this perfectly capture the optical oddities of the “moon illusion” (why the moon looks bigger near the horizon), but when you think about the sheer technical mastery that went in to making it happen … WOW!

Philipp Schmidli (his website, in German) set up on a hillside a kilometer away so he could get this angle, after scouting the perfect spot on foot using GPS. To get the photo he needed to use a 1200 mm focal length, which is like a reverse-sniper-rifle of optical input. The moon illusion is enhanced by that telephoto trick, too, but you can head over to io9 if you want to dig into the technical details (several commenters there have done a good job with it).

But wow.

Source: io9.com

The Distance of the Moon Looking for a beautiful way to kill some time on a weekend afternoon? Listen to Liev Schreiber reading Italo Calvino’s “The Distance of the Moon”, from Cosmicomics. It’s a tale of the evolution of our moon, from a time when it was not so far away, milked for nourishment by lunar herdsmen. How wonderful that a story could be built on science (our moon did used to be closer to us, and moves farther away every year) yet journey so far into the imagination!  A+, Radiolab. (photo by Laurent Laveder)
Pop-upView Separately

The Distance of the Moon

Looking for a beautiful way to kill some time on a weekend afternoon? Listen to Liev Schreiber reading Italo Calvino’s “The Distance of the Moon”, from Cosmicomics. It’s a tale of the evolution of our moon, from a time when it was not so far away, milked for nourishment by lunar herdsmen.

How wonderful that a story could be built on science (our moon did used to be closer to us, and moves farther away every year) yet journey so far into the imagination! 

A+, Radiolab.

(photo by Laurent Laveder)

via danorst: Moon Rise Time Slice…. this is a collage of 11 photos taken over 27 minutes and 59 seconds Gorgeous. Also photographic proof that the moon is not, in fact, larger near the horizon. That is merely an illusion. What do they call that illusion? “The Moon Illusion” of course. ASAPScience did a really nice video about it. Not only that, but see how the moon is red near the horizon? That’s because of the same science that makes the sunsets red and orange! And I did a video about that: “Why is the Sky Any Color At All?” It all comes together, man! Science!
Zoom Info
via danorst: Moon Rise Time Slice…. this is a collage of 11 photos taken over 27 minutes and 59 seconds Gorgeous. Also photographic proof that the moon is not, in fact, larger near the horizon. That is merely an illusion. What do they call that illusion? “The Moon Illusion” of course. ASAPScience did a really nice video about it. Not only that, but see how the moon is red near the horizon? That’s because of the same science that makes the sunsets red and orange! And I did a video about that: “Why is the Sky Any Color At All?” It all comes together, man! Science!
Zoom Info

via danorst:

Moon Rise Time Slice…. this is a collage of 11 photos taken over 27 minutes and 59 seconds

Gorgeous. Also photographic proof that the moon is not, in fact, larger near the horizon. That is merely an illusion.

What do they call that illusion? “The Moon Illusion” of course. ASAPScience did a really nice video about it.

Not only that, but see how the moon is red near the horizon? That’s because of the same science that makes the sunsets red and orange! And I did a video about that: “Why is the Sky Any Color At All?”

It all comes together, man! Science!

Here’s my very first attempt at photographing the moon! All in all, I’m pretty satisfied with how it turned out. I took this shot last Thursday, March 28, just one day after the full moon. You can see the waning shadow beginning to creep in at the top. I got pretty lucky with the position of the moon, and the terminator (the line between light and dark) fell right across the moon’s Langrenus crater up there around the 12:30 position. Don’t worry, I didn’t know that off the back of my hand, I had to look it up. Langrenus is almost 3 km deep and about 130 km across, and with the sharp angle of the sunlight I was able to catch the back of the crater wall quite well. Of course, that was pure luck, since I was just shooting at a white dot in the sky. A few photo nerd notes: Considering that I didn’t have a tripod with me (I shot this on top of a fencepost), this is only at 105 mm, and I had to turn the ISO way up, it turned out pretty nice. I need to get a lens that goes to 200 mm or beyond, bad. Inquire if you’d like to donate one :)
Pop-upView Separately

Here’s my very first attempt at photographing the moon!

All in all, I’m pretty satisfied with how it turned out. I took this shot last Thursday, March 28, just one day after the full moon. You can see the waning shadow beginning to creep in at the top. I got pretty lucky with the position of the moon, and the terminator (the line between light and dark) fell right across the moon’s Langrenus crater up there around the 12:30 position. Don’t worry, I didn’t know that off the back of my hand, I had to look it up. Langrenus is almost 3 km deep and about 130 km across, and with the sharp angle of the sunlight I was able to catch the back of the crater wall quite well. Of course, that was pure luck, since I was just shooting at a white dot in the sky.

A few photo nerd notes: Considering that I didn’t have a tripod with me (I shot this on top of a fencepost), this is only at 105 mm, and I had to turn the ISO way up, it turned out pretty nice. I need to get a lens that goes to 200 mm or beyond, bad. Inquire if you’d like to donate one :)

Moon or Frying Pan? This is the closest I’ll get to any April Fool’s-related posts. I wouldn’t mess with you guys. Not for science. APOD has a fun little photo quiz called “Moon or Frying Pan?” that does pretty much what it says on the tin. Can you figure out which of the image pairs are planetary satellites and which are from Christopher Jonassen’s planetary frying pans project? I don’t know what the astronomical significance here is, but it probably has something to do with delicious, sizzling space-bacon. Or something,
Zoom Info
Moon or Frying Pan? This is the closest I’ll get to any April Fool’s-related posts. I wouldn’t mess with you guys. Not for science. APOD has a fun little photo quiz called “Moon or Frying Pan?” that does pretty much what it says on the tin. Can you figure out which of the image pairs are planetary satellites and which are from Christopher Jonassen’s planetary frying pans project? I don’t know what the astronomical significance here is, but it probably has something to do with delicious, sizzling space-bacon. Or something,
Zoom Info
Moon or Frying Pan? This is the closest I’ll get to any April Fool’s-related posts. I wouldn’t mess with you guys. Not for science. APOD has a fun little photo quiz called “Moon or Frying Pan?” that does pretty much what it says on the tin. Can you figure out which of the image pairs are planetary satellites and which are from Christopher Jonassen’s planetary frying pans project? I don’t know what the astronomical significance here is, but it probably has something to do with delicious, sizzling space-bacon. Or something,
Zoom Info

Moon or Frying Pan?

This is the closest I’ll get to any April Fool’s-related posts. I wouldn’t mess with you guys. Not for science.

APOD has a fun little photo quiz called “Moon or Frying Pan?” that does pretty much what it says on the tin. Can you figure out which of the image pairs are planetary satellites and which are from Christopher Jonassen’s planetary frying pans project?

I don’t know what the astronomical significance here is, but it probably has something to do with delicious, sizzling space-bacon. Or something,

Peering into Permanent Darkness During a lunar month, the side of the Moon facing Earth is alternatingly bathed in light and shadow. It’s a cycle we are all used to, the lunar disk waxing and waning between full and new. However, there are parts of the Moon, buried deep in craters near the poles, that have not seen the light of the Sun in hundreds of millions of years (perhaps even longer). These simulated images show the various tools that the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter uses to peer into these dark regions, looking for rare chemicals in some of the coldest places in the solar system. Check out more at NBC News and watch a full animation at NASA’s visualization studio.
Zoom Info
Peering into Permanent Darkness During a lunar month, the side of the Moon facing Earth is alternatingly bathed in light and shadow. It’s a cycle we are all used to, the lunar disk waxing and waning between full and new. However, there are parts of the Moon, buried deep in craters near the poles, that have not seen the light of the Sun in hundreds of millions of years (perhaps even longer). These simulated images show the various tools that the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter uses to peer into these dark regions, looking for rare chemicals in some of the coldest places in the solar system. Check out more at NBC News and watch a full animation at NASA’s visualization studio.
Zoom Info
Peering into Permanent Darkness During a lunar month, the side of the Moon facing Earth is alternatingly bathed in light and shadow. It’s a cycle we are all used to, the lunar disk waxing and waning between full and new. However, there are parts of the Moon, buried deep in craters near the poles, that have not seen the light of the Sun in hundreds of millions of years (perhaps even longer). These simulated images show the various tools that the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter uses to peer into these dark regions, looking for rare chemicals in some of the coldest places in the solar system. Check out more at NBC News and watch a full animation at NASA’s visualization studio.
Zoom Info
Peering into Permanent Darkness During a lunar month, the side of the Moon facing Earth is alternatingly bathed in light and shadow. It’s a cycle we are all used to, the lunar disk waxing and waning between full and new. However, there are parts of the Moon, buried deep in craters near the poles, that have not seen the light of the Sun in hundreds of millions of years (perhaps even longer). These simulated images show the various tools that the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter uses to peer into these dark regions, looking for rare chemicals in some of the coldest places in the solar system. Check out more at NBC News and watch a full animation at NASA’s visualization studio.
Zoom Info
Peering into Permanent Darkness During a lunar month, the side of the Moon facing Earth is alternatingly bathed in light and shadow. It’s a cycle we are all used to, the lunar disk waxing and waning between full and new. However, there are parts of the Moon, buried deep in craters near the poles, that have not seen the light of the Sun in hundreds of millions of years (perhaps even longer). These simulated images show the various tools that the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter uses to peer into these dark regions, looking for rare chemicals in some of the coldest places in the solar system. Check out more at NBC News and watch a full animation at NASA’s visualization studio.
Zoom Info
Peering into Permanent Darkness During a lunar month, the side of the Moon facing Earth is alternatingly bathed in light and shadow. It’s a cycle we are all used to, the lunar disk waxing and waning between full and new. However, there are parts of the Moon, buried deep in craters near the poles, that have not seen the light of the Sun in hundreds of millions of years (perhaps even longer). These simulated images show the various tools that the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter uses to peer into these dark regions, looking for rare chemicals in some of the coldest places in the solar system. Check out more at NBC News and watch a full animation at NASA’s visualization studio.
Zoom Info

Peering into Permanent Darkness

During a lunar month, the side of the Moon facing Earth is alternatingly bathed in light and shadow. It’s a cycle we are all used to, the lunar disk waxing and waning between full and new.

However, there are parts of the Moon, buried deep in craters near the poles, that have not seen the light of the Sun in hundreds of millions of years (perhaps even longer). These simulated images show the various tools that the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter uses to peer into these dark regions, looking for rare chemicals in some of the coldest places in the solar system.

Check out more at NBC News and watch a full animation at NASA’s visualization studio.