moon

Blue Origin now has a golden opportunity to advance Spacex on trips to the moon. And he is taking advantage of it

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The Lunar exploration panorama has changed with the new US administration. Blue Origin, the Jeff Bezos space company, is strategically positioning to capitalize on the recent turbulence of the NASA Artemis program. Short. With Boeing and Lockheed Martin outside the future lunar missions after the Cancellation of the SLS Rocket and the Orion shiptwo companies are the clear favorite to reconfigure the NASA Artemis program. Although Spacex has led the commercial narrative so far, its focus centered on Mars and the Technological developments of competition They could offer Blue originated a window to, if not advance, at least equate forces in the race towards our natural satellite. First flight this year. John Couluris, the leader of Blue Origin’s lunar efforts, has revealed New details about architecture and The road map From the company’s missions to the moon. In a presentation of the Lunar Surface Innovation Initiative Conference, Couluris said Blue Origin planned to do A demonstration flight without crew from its lunar module Blue Moon Mark I to the South Pole of the Moon before the end of the year. Blue Moon Mark I. Blue Origin’s first lunar module was designed to launch aboard the new Glenn rocket. Driven by a single be-7 engine of liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen, can transport up to 3.9 tons of load anywhere in the lunar surface with a precision in the alun of less than 100 meters, according to Blue Origin. The Mark I will not only serve as a test bench for technologies of the future Blue Moon Mark II ship, Yes with the ability to carry astronautsbut it will transport commercial and NASA useful charges to the Moon, including an experiment to measure the impact of the BE-7 engine on the lunar surface. Blue Moon Mark II. Blue’s true bet for dominating trips to the Moon is its Blue Moon Mark II, capable of taking four astronauts or between 20 and 30 tons of load to the Moon, depending on whether it is the reusable or disposable version. Here the newly announced Cislunar Transporter comes into play, a key piece that improves Blue Origin’s strategy with that of Spacex and its gigantic Starship ship. This vehicle, also driven by BE-7 engines, is designed to transport up to 100 tons of load from the low terrestrial orbit to a lunar orbit. Cislunar Transporter. Blue Origin’s lunar architecture begins with a New Glenn rocket by placing the transport in the low terrestrial orbit. Additional rocket launches would take advantage of the upper stage of the New Glenn to fill the liquid hydrogen and oxygen tug tanks. Once full, the Transporter southern would travel to an almost rectilinear halo (NRHO) next to the moon. The Blue Moon Mark II lunar module, thrown into another New Glenn, would go to that same orbit, where it would be attached to the transport to recharge its tanks, obtaining the necessary fuel to alunize and return to the NRHO. Simpler than Starship. Blue Origin’s architecture is easier than the HLS system of Spacex, in which a starship stays in terrestrial orbit and has to be coupled with several starship-cysterna (a maximum of eight, a maximum of eight, a maximum of eight, According to Elon Musk) Before recovering enough fuel to travel to the moon. On the other hand, Blue Origin is moving forward in the storage technology of cryogenic propellants without evaporation (“Zero Boil-Off”) that he hopes to demonstrate in June 2025 to solve one of the main problems of liquid fuels in long-term missions. An opportunity. These Blue Origin advances charge special relevance to the drastic cuts proposed for NASA. The 2026 budgets propose the cancellation of the SLS rocket and the Orion ship after the Artemis III mission, scheduled for 2027, which will use a Spacex starship to transport astronauts from the lunar orbit to the satellite surface. This dismantling of the Artemisa program As we know it leaves a vacuum that the White House intends to fill with rockets and commercial ships that allow more ambitious subsequent lunar missions. Although Spacex with Starship is an obvious candidate, Blue Origin is making it difficult. Images | Blue Origin In Xataka | The last eeuu slap to Europe has sounded up to space: NASA has just left ESA with Artemis

NASA has revealed why no astronaut has left the Earth’s atmosphere. Not even when they went to the moon

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From time to time, NASA reminds us with some anecdote or study that things are never how they seem or, failing that, that can always be questionable or have more than one answer. Recently they gave us such a simple explanation about our inability to find extraterrestrial signs that scared. They also clarified why We hadn’t returned To the moon before. The latest: remember that, technically, no human has ever left the earth’s atmosphere. And yes, I don’t even want when we went to the moon. A technically true provocation. To say that no astronaut in history has ever left the earth’s atmosphere may sound to a joke or little less than a conspiracy theory, but, from a scientific perspective and following what atmospheric models say, it is more than us A correct statement. To place ourselves in perspective and following this line of explanation, even iconic figures Like Yuri Gagarin either Neil Armstrongor contemporary space travelers Like William Shatnerhave remained, in physical terms, within the most extreme (although diffuse) limits of the Earth’s atmosphere. The key lies in how the end of that atmosphere is defined: a more complex and expansive issue of what is commonly believed. The atmosphere does not end where we imagine. All this reasoned recently Doug RowlandNASA heliophysics expert. Contrary to the popular idea that the atmosphere ends in a finite layer that dissipates before reaching the terrestrial orbit, the reality is that the atmosphere does not have a clearly defined “roof”. On the contrary, it becomes progressively more dim, but continues to spread. As Rowland toldeven hundreds of kilometers on the surface, where the International Space Station (EEI) orbits, there is still a sufficient air density to gradually stop the station. In fact, if it were not periodically driven with rockets, the EEI would end up falling by atmospheric drag. The artificial border: Kárman. For practical reasons (such as spatial treaties or legal definitions) an international convention has been adopted: The karm linelocated 100 kilometers above sea level, which marks the point where the space begins theoretically. This line serves as a technical threshold, since 99,99997% of atmospheric mass terrestrial is below. Said that, and how Explain the space agency itselfthis definition is useful for regulations and classifications, not so much to describe with physical precision the real limits of the atmosphere. The geocorone: atmosphere that reaches the moon. In 2019, A study based on data from Soho Solar Observatory (NASA/ESA), revealed that the exosphere of the Earth (specifically, a diffuse cloud of known hydrogen atoms Like geocorone) extends to about 629,000 kilometers, that is, beyond the orbit of the moon. What happens? That on that limit there are still about 0.2 hydrogen atoms per cubic centimeter. That means that, technically, even the Apollo missions that alunizarized in the 60s and 70s did not abandon the earth’s atmosphere. “The moon flies through the Earth’s atmosphere,” Igor Baliukin came to saymain author of the study, referring to the unsuspected magnitude of this invisible layer. The sun also contains us. The thing is even more complicated when both the Earth and the Moon are Inside the solar atmosphere. This extends to the edge of the helosphere, the limit beyond which the interstellar space begins. At this point it must be remembered that between the atmosphere of the earth and that of the sun there is no emptiness, but a structure of progressive and overlapping layers that contain particles, energy and electromagnetic dynamics. Therefore, and seen thus, the concept of “being in space” is less a matter of abrupt border and more a matter of progressive gradient. So where the space begins? As Rowland explainedthe answer depends on the point of view. If you ask where the atmosphere ends in a practical sense, probably about 400 kilometers, where air density ceases to have significant effect on objects. But from a more rigorous scientific perspective, that atmosphere does not disappear: it only dissipates and dilutes to barely measurable extremes, without disappearing at all. Therefore, “exterior space” is not an empty place, but a continuous environment full of particles, fields and subtle structures. In that sense, all space trips made by humans have elapsed within that extended wrapping that is still part of the planet that launched them. Image | Jasbond007 In Xataka | The last eeuu slap to Europe has sounded up to space: NASA has just left ESA with Artemis In Xataka | NASA is being very complicated to return to the moon. Your auditor no longer trusts that it can fly over for 2025

NASA will cancel the SLS rocket and look for a cheaper alternative to colonize the moon and Mars

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It was seen comingbut the impact is not less. The Trump administration has presented its budget proposal for fiscal year 2026. And in regards to NASA, it is a true earthquake. Goodbye to SLS. The huge and very expensive lunar rocket SLS of the NASA, whose development has led the Boeing spatial division for 14 years, will be removed after the Artemis III mission, scheduled for 2027. There will be no block 1B version, and therefore the ML-2 mobile launch tower (whose budget had been sentenced) will be presumably without using. Justification is economical. The own Budget document Openly criticizes the SLS, noting that it has a cost of 4,000 million dollars per launch and has exceeded its budget by 140%. Demolish figures that not only They have sentenced the heir to the legacy Apollo and space transforders, but to all NASA’s lunar architecture. Goodbye to Orion and Lunar Gateway. Designed to launch aboard the SLS, the Lockheed Martin’s space capsule now has the same expiration date: it will be removed after taking astronauts to the lunar orbit in the Artemis II and Artemis III missions. NASA will choose a more modern and affordable architecture for Artemis IV onwards. But the cuts do not stop here. The Lunar Gateway Space Station, a key international project in the now truncated plans of the Artemis program, is also canceled. This leaves NASA’s international partners in a very delicate position that participated in the station: the European Space Agency (ESA), Japan (Jaxa), Canada (CSA) and United Arab Emirates. ESA, which supplies the European Ship Module Orion and develops The I-Hab and Esprit modules of Lunar Gatewaysee how your investment and astronaut places (including a seat to travel for the first time to the lunar surface) are in the air. As Daniel Marín points out in Eurekathe “ugly” to the partners is considerable. Especially to Europe. The bet: commercial ships and Mars. According to a NASA statement, the objective of these cuts is “to accelerate human exploration to the moon and Mars with a tax portfolio.” In other words, the blank checks for usual partners of the space agency are over. The White House wants to “return to the moon before China and put an American on Mars.” The budget allocates more than 7,000 million dollars to lunar exploration, but focused on “next generation commercial systems, more profitable” to replace the SLS/ORion architecture. Starship/HLS of Spacex and New Glenn/Blue Moon of Blue Origin have, as is logical, many ballots. The budget also introduces an investment of 1,000 million dollars to start a program focused on Mars. Although the details are scarce, it is taken for granted that will also pivot the SLS to the Spacex Starship, following Elon Musk’s vision. However, it is a very long -term bet, with little chances of seeing fruits before the current presidential mandate ends. Less science, less flights to ISS. The budget is especially devastating for NASA’s Space Science Division, which suffers a cut of 2,265 million dollars. The Mars Sample Return mission is explicitly canceled to recover the Martian soil samples from Rover Perseverance, arguing that the same objective will be achieved with future manned missions. Emblematic projects such as the new Nancy Grace Roman (which is almost finished), the historic Hubble space telescope and even, According to Eric Berger of Ars TechnicaNASA’s participation in the Rosalind Franklin European mission. The International Space Station, although it will remain operational until 2030, is not fought. NASA will reduce the size of the American crew and on-board research (-508 million budget), decreasing “significantly” loading and crew flights, gradually leaving the low terrestrial orbit in the hands of commercial stations (and China). A cycle change. While the proposal has yet to go through Congress, the Republican majority makes it difficult to take great modifications, although programs such as SLS/ORION have important support within the giant lobby as Boeing. The big question is whether this bet will work to win the space race against China. The abrupt cancellation of the SLS could leave a vacuum that China would take the opportunity to establish a sustained lunar presence before commercial alternatives are ready. And it is that getting to the Moon is not easy for private companies, as the failed launches of the NASA Clps program have demonstrated. Needless to say how risky it is to bet on an accelerated arrival to Mars. Image | POT In Xataka | China is getting closer to overcoming NASA in its Martian mission. And just invited other countries to join

In 2028 they will build a nuclear power plant on the moon

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Yuri Ivanovich Borísov, former Vice Minister of Defense of Russia and currently at the head of Roscosmos, the Russian Space Agency, confirmed in March 2024 that China and the country led by Vladimir Putin planned to install a nuclear reactor on the surface of the moon. Russia’s long experience in the development of nuclear infrastructure is beyond doubt. And China, although it has later reached this industry, has scientific capacity and resources necessary to get airy. Its plan is to have the International Lunar Research Station (known as Ilrs for its acronym in English). Russia and China will operate it jointly, but for this installation to come to fruition it is essential to develop an energy source that guarantees a stable and sustained supply over time. This is the need that precisely aims to solve these two nations building A small nuclear power plant On the lunar surface. The starting gun will arrive in 2028 Pei Zhaoyu, the chief engineer of the Chang’e-8 mission, has confirmed This week how relevant Russia’s participation is in this project: “An important issue for the Ilrs is the energy supply. In this field Russia has a natural advantage because in regard to nuclear facilities, and especially sending them to space, leads the world even ahead of the US.” The Chang’e-8 mission will give the authentic departure gun to this very ambitious program. The International Lunar Research Station will be permanently inhabited from 2030 And it is that China plans to launch it in 2028 with a double purpose: initiate the preparation of the lunar base that will be permanently inhabited from 2030 and explore the construction of the nuclear reactor that will be responsible for the main delivery of energy to the station. As we have seen some lines up, both facilities They should be finished in 2035. Interestingly, the Chinese government has not yet officialized its approval of this plan, but the statements of Pei Zhaoyu corroborate that The collaboration of Russia and China is already underway. In any case, the country’s nuclear scientists led by Xi Jinping already have a preliminary design of their nuclear reactor ready. And it has some novel features. To elaborate it have been inspired by both NASA’s design and the old Soviet nuclear reactor Topaz-II. Your proposal will use Fuel bars Ring -shaped uranium dioxide; A double cooling system that will use liquid metal (NAK-78), and that, on paper, will be able to maintain the reactor core below 600 ºC; And finally, a moderator of Ititrio hydride neutrons that according to Chinese technicians is more efficient than conventional zirconium hydride moderators. Meanwhile the US is preparing His return to the moon through the NASA Artemis program. Its purpose is to place two astronauts on the lunar surface in 2027 and start from this milestone the construction of a sustainable lunar base. This installation will have large solar panels, but photovoltaic energy It is not enough to ensure supply Because on the moon the night endures for between fourteen and fifteen terrestrial days. For this reason The US is also developing a nuclear reactor known as FISION SURFACE POWER (FSP) that will be able to deliver 40 kW of power. Image | China National Space Administration More information | Interesting Engineering In Xataka | We are building nuclear spacecraft again. NASA believes we will need them

There was a time when we thought the birds migrated to the moon. Until an arrow released in Africa fell in Germany

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Spring is a time that I always liked. Not for the Horrible processionarybut for the return of the swallows And, above all, of the storks. After a long winter, They return home to nest. Imagine the surprise if, one day, one of those stork appears in your locality with the neck crossed by an 8 -centimeter arrow. Stop imagining because that happened in 1822 in a German city. And far from being an anecdote, it became a key event to unravel the mystery of why birds They disappeared in winter. The doubt. Now it is no mystery and it is something that we learn at school since childhood, but not so many centuries, people did not know why, good at first, the birds were in autumn and reappeared in spring. Those Migratory processes in which even the smallest of the birds rEcorren thousands of kilometers without stopping They were not understood, which forced the thinkers of the time to launch hypotheses and theories that, in the absence of evidence, since they were accepted without further ado. One of the answers was evident. And it could be none than … Alien birds. That is what thought Charles Morton, a Harvard academic who, in the seventeenth century, suggested that the reason why some birds disappeared in winter was because they migrated … to the moon. Most likely you have raised your eyebrow thinking something like “impossible, they could not be so illusory”, but you have to put into the skin of someone who had no way to check the phenomenon and it was still an answer to a real mystery. Because what they knew was that they disappeared for months, but not the place they were going to. And as they saw the moon from Massachusetts, but not Colombia, because the answer was clear. But don’t believe it was the only crazy theory of the time. Aristotle, already in the IV AC theorized about the possibility of being transformed into other species or even shuffled over his hibernation underwater. Morton rejected this idea because it was too fantasy (not like his, of course). The arrow. Morton even calculated that the trip to the moon had a month away and another back, sleeping much of the time and surviving thanks to his body fat. The truth is that, in the absence of better theories, it was not bad (despite my jocular tone, we talked about the seventeenth century and the media they had). However, little by little the idea that these European birds were going to other places during the winter. And the definitive test was brought by a stork. A good day of 1882, north of Germany, someone shot a stork, who fell down and with a capital surprise for those present: he had an 8 -centimeter arrow through his neck. The question was no longer how I could fly with such a breakdown, but where the arrow had come from. Brava PFEILSTORCH. Thus, they took the body of the stork to the University of Rostock, where the researchers examined the projectile and concluded that it was an arrow belonging to some group in the center of Africa. As it was impossible, or tremendously unlikely, that someone launched something like that on European soil, the response became evident: that stork had traveled more than 3,000 kilometers from the point in Africa in which winter had passed and where it was killed in Germany. Baptized as PFEILSTORCHIt was dissected and preserved in perfect condition in the Zoological Collection of the University of Rostock thanks to its undeniable importance in the world of science and ornithology: it was confirmation to the suspicions that, indeed, migratory birds or became anything else, nor slept four months underwater or went to the moon: they traveled to the warmest places during the European winter. Clue. After Pfeilstorch (which means “Flechy stork” or “storks crossed by an arrow”), they found more specimens In Europe with the same characteristics: arrows stuck somewhere in your body. This is not so uncommon in large birds, which show great resilience to wounds that do not compromise flight or its basic functions. Once they are injured, if not seriously, the wound stabilizes and the bird can continue with its life. With the inclusion Of the rings on the legs of the birds by the Danish HC Mortensen in 1899, the researchers systematized the study of specimens to verify that those who flew from Europe before winter, disappeared and then returned, were the same. Thus, we can say that this arrow launched in Africa that landed in Germany was the first bird monitoring system, a coincidence that allowed obtaining the first conclusive data on the migratory practices of the birds. Images | Thula Na In Xataka | Modern cities have become authentic “headlights.” For thousands of birds it is a problem

2024 YR4 is not going to kill us, but could collide with the moon

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The James Webb space telescope has been observing the smallest object of all its history. For a good reason. It is about Famous Asteroid 2024 YR4 That, at the beginning of the year, it appeared in NASA’s planetary defense systems and ESA as a potentially dangerous object. First measurement. The images taken with the near infrared chamber (NIRCAM) of the Webb Telescope show the light reflected by the asteroid. Those taken with the Middle Infrared Instrument (Miri) show their thermal light. The set of these data has allowed astronomers Determine that 2024 YR4 measures 60 meters in diameterapproximately the height of a 15 -story building. However, the asteroid shares thermal properties with larger bodies, perhaps due to the rapid speed at which it is rotating or the lack of fine sand (regolito) on its surface. It is probably formed by rocks the size of a fist or even larger. It will not collide with the earth. Webb’s first observations, which began on March 8, have also confirmed what they had been saying NASA and ESA: 2024 YR4 is not a threat to our planet. The probability of crossing with the Earth in December 2032 is now 0.0011%. All relief, taking into account that It became 3.2% when there were not enough data yet to close the range of uncertainty in the calculations of his career. The UN will no longer have to coordinate with space agencies to try to divert it or to evacuate cities at risk. I could impact the moon. On the other hand, the Webb has confirmed a 2% chance that 2024 YR4 clash with the moon. It is still a very small probability (seen otherwise, there is a 98% probability that it does not happen), but in this case astronomers are in favor of the impact. That the asteroid clashes with the moon would not put us in danger, and instead would allow astronomers to document the impact of a meteorite, their effects on the satellite and the lunar surface material that would be triggered. While natural asteroids that impact the moon are not so rare, they are difficult to predict even after being observed, when their mass and speed are unknown. 2024 YR4 would be a perfectly controlled experiment thanks to all the data that scientists have collected about it. In favor of the impact. “Part of our motivation to continue observing this asteroid in particular is to find out if that number (the probability of impact with the moon) will also be reduced to zero,” he told New Scientist Andrew Rivkin, one of the astronomers of the Johns Hopkins University who asked for hours of the Webb Space Telescope to observe 2024 YR4. “We cross our fingers so that there is an impact on the moon,” added Alan Fitzsimmons, of the Queen’s University of Belfast. “It would have no effect on Earth, but it would allow us to study for the first time the formation of a lunar crater by a known asteroid.” Images | NASA, ESA, CSA In Xataka | In 2011, a collector bought in Morocco a meteorite. It has turned out to be a direct test of thermal water on Mars

All the resources that we can potentially extract from the moon, illustrated in this graphic developer

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Mars has become the long -awaited objective of space exploration. So much that the New “Manifest Destination” of the United States. This is something that has sown doubts about the future of Ambitious Artemis mission for go to the moonbut beyond to satisfy scientific curiosity, our satellite has a lot to offer as far as resources are concerned. And in this graph prepared by Visual Capitalist We can what resources we can get from the Moon and what is the degree of confidence we have for each of them. Scenery. The graph is more informative than attractive, that must be recognized, but clearly exposes not only what are the main resources of the moon, but the possibilities we have to take advantage of our current technology. Thus, we can see that there are resources that we have well measured, such as the amount of regolito or solar energyothers not calculated so precisely, and we can see clearly if they are resources that we can recover for land use right now or if they are resources that are out of our reach. Because, of course, one thing is to collect resources, and another very different to be able to pack them correctly and return them to the earth. Resources. The data that they have used for the elaboration of the graphic respond to those of the geological study that the United States developed in 2022 and there is something important that must be taken into account: we are at the dawn of something that seemed science fiction, the Mining on the Moon. There is a large presence of metals on the moon such as iron, titanium, aluminum or magnesium, but also the coveted silicon, which is the Base of our technology industry and solar panels. There are also ice-3, which is a Fuel potential for nuclear fusionrare metals, oxygen, and it is estimated that there is water, but not in a liquid state, but present in the form of ice in the craters that are permanently shaded. The main resources and their status are clearer in this table: resource Current classification Recoverable with our technology Reserve in 30 years Solar energy Measured Yeah Yeah Helio-3 Dear No A stranger Regolito Quantified No Yeah Oxygen in Regolito Quantified No Yeah Hydrogen retained water Quantified No Likely ice -shaped water Minimal or without evidence No A stranger Lunar mining. Before Elon Musk’s arrival to revolutionize space exploration at the governmental level, there were Plans For NASA to send drilling equipment to the Moon to establish a permanent extraction plant for 2032. It is an objective that may have been complicated taking into account recent events, but it is also something that would conflict with the Treaty of ultra -resters. That mining on the Moon is, as we say, very interesting due to the deposits we believe we have located in the satellite, but article 11 of the 1967 Treaty establishes that all the natural resources of the Moon are “common heritage of humanity.” In addition, “it cannot be subject to national appropriation through claims for sovereignty” and those resources “cannot be owned by any state, intergovernmental or non -governmental international organization, national organization or non -governmental entity or any natural person.” Interpretation of lunar soil by ESA Regolito. Returning to the graph, there are two resources that stand out on the rest, both because we know of their existence and because they are the simplest to take advantage of current technology. One of them is lunar dust, curiously. It is called a regolito And it is a carpet of rocky materials that has a couple of useful applications. The first thing is that it is composed of a large amount of oxygen and metals, elements that could be separated from dust to use them in other purposes. Through electrolysis, we can separate oxygen from metals and, although oxygen on Earth is a byproduct, on the moon it can be vital as a source of life. The dust obtained as waste can be used as construction material for brick or roads. There are other projects to take advantage of this abundant lunar resource: Improve regolito fertility through bacteria to be able to grow on the satellite floor. In fact, this soil fertilization is key not only for the colonization of the moon: also for the Martian adventures. Solar energy. Now, from the resources that we can extract from the moon and on the moon, solar energy is the most interesting. The reason is that we could start extracting in the short term because we have the technology to do so. In lunar poles, the sun is visible for long periods, so energy could be generated continuously because there is no rain with rain or clouds (this rainy March we have learned The price of rain in the generation of solar energy). To transmit that energy captured to Earth, lasers or microwave could be used. Projects. There are some in progress. On the one hand, we have Luna Ring, a Japanese project that wants to place a 400 -kilometer wide solar panel belt and 11,000 kilometers long (an absolute barbarity) around Ecuador lunar to send 13,000 theravats to the earth continuously. Is more than we currently need. On the other hand, the European Space Agency had the GE⊕-LPSa project that would consist of a lunar station with panels manufactured from lunar resources. Because yes, the regolito also has silicon and other metals that could be used in situ to make panels. Here the idea is to use that energy to feed the lunar bases. And another project is Blue Alchimist de Blue Origin. Again, taking advantage of the regolite to create panels, it also seeks to generate energy in an unlimited and constant way. Challenges. Now, they are not simple or cheap programs. Focusing on the most accurate project, which would be to produce energy because we know that there is light and we know how to send that energy to the earth, we … Read more

The sunset images on the moon are more than a curiosity. They will also help us solve an old mystery

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50 years after the last manned mission to the moon, NASA and other space agencies in the world have renewed their interest in exploration In situ of the satellite In the case of the US agency, this return to the moon has been bittersweet. To the recurring transpiés of the Artemis program The injured arrivals from American private probes are added. There are also exceptions here. Sunset on the moon. The first module mission Blue Ghost From the company Texana Firefly Aerospace has brought us A sequence of images They show us the sunset on the moon. The images are not only striking but can help us solve a question that persecutes us from the era of the Apollo missions. An enigma to solve. The doubt in question revolves around the phenomenon known as “Lunar horizon glow” (Lunar Horizon Glow) and is related to the dust of the satellite surface. This phenomenon was documented by THE SURVEYOR 7 MISSION that he arrived at the satellite at the end of 1968 and was also captured by the astronauts of the last manned lunar mission, Apollo 17. The data compiled by the probe could help us to inquire if this glow is due to the existence of small polka dust particles in suspension on the lunar surface and investigate in the phenomenon that would be causing this levitation in a place with a practically non -existent atmosphere such as the moon. The main hypothesis indicates that these particles could be electrically charged by the effect of solar radiation, which would make them repel with each other and thus levitate. Halo. The images show us for the first time in decades this unique luminous halo. In the photographs, the greenish glow caused by lunar dust in the lunar dusk can be seen. From eclipse to sunset. On March 2, the Blue Ghost module landed in the Mare Crisium de Luna region becoming the First private mission in reaching the satellite. The mission operated for 14 days, the strictly daytime part of the lunar day, that is, until a few hours later the dusk we see in the image. The mission brought 10 charges to the moon NASA experiments. During his activity period he sent 119 GB of data to Earth, of which 51 GB correspond to technological and scientific data, According to NASA. In those 14 days the mission too He could capture A unique event: the lunar eclipse of March 14. With unique detail: from the moon what was appreciated was an eclipse of sun caused when our planet interposed between the satellite and light in those 14 days the mission could also capture a unique event: the lunar eclipse of last March 14. With unique detail: from the moon what was appreciated was an eclipse of sun caused when our planet interposed between the satellite and light of the sun. CLPS The Firefly Aerospace mission is part of the Clps initiative (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) from NASA and the Artemis campaign. This program seeks that private companies cooperate with NASA in lunar exploration in order to outsource part of the agency’s efforts in this corner of the universe. The lunar missions framed in this initiative have been arriving with more grief than glory to our satellite. Only one of the four Missions launched to date has managed to land in the satellite with the ability to operate normally. In Xataka | It has passed again: the intuitive machines spacecraft has come alive to the moon, but has overturned at the last moment Image | Firefly Aerospace

The first time a ship recorded an eclipse from the moon was in 1967. The second has been today

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The blood moon is a land of blood from the lunar surface. The early morning of March 14, the Lunar Blue Ghost landizer of Firefly Aerospace He registered a solar eclipse from his unique perspective on the moon. It is the first commercial ship that achieves it. And the second in general, from the NASA Surveyor 3 probe in April 1967. Eclipse lunar, solar eclipse. In a lunar eclipse, the earth stands between the sun and the moon, projecting its shadow on the satellite, which acquires a reddish tone due to the longest wavelengths that are filtered through the atmosphere. Hence it is known as “blood moon.” From the point of view of the moon (the visible face of the moon, to be exact) is a solar eclipse. NASA’s Surveyor Lunar 3 probe was the first in register how the earth is blocking the sun to form a diamond ring, similar to the one we see from here during the total solar eclipses. The first private mission to record it. In addition to Surveyor, Apollo Missions Astronaut The Kaguya Japanese probe in 2009 They have been able to register them from the lunar orbit. But Blue Ghost has been the second ship to document a total solar eclipse from the satellite surface. Similarly, Firefly Aerospace has become the first private company to get this milestone. Not surprisingly, it is the first to have achieved a gentle in vertical, something they have tried Several companies in recent years with little success. Everything got red. The eclipse It started at 5:30 UTC on Friday. At 8:30 UTC, the ground around the ship and the surfaces of the ship itself They had acquired an intense reddish tone. At 9:30 UTC, the Blue Ghost lunar module photographed Your first diamond ring: The silhouette of the earth framed by the brightness of the sun, with a flash crowning it as a piece of goldsmiths. Firefly has been clearly victorious in one week in which another Texas company, Intuitive Machines, has tried to alunize its Nova-C ship. The landing “Athena” fell sideways and could not recharge his batteries, dying within a few hours. Blue Ghost, on the other hand, landed at first and deployed a heat probeamong other NASA experiments. Image | The eclipse seen from Earth and the Moon (NASA, Firefly Aerospace) In Xataka | The United States has returned to the moon after 50 years with a fleet of “low cost” ships. It is being chaotic In Xataka | There is a silent career to get the moon waves: dozens of companies have claimed part of their spectrum

Tonight we have a moon eclipse and with him a phenomenon surrounded by panic and superstitions: the “blood moon”

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An eclipse occurs when an astronomical body blocks another. The effect is usually the total or partial darkening of this second body. However, in some lunar eclipses, the shadow projected by the earth does not completely obscure the satellite but “dye” red. They are blood moons, and this morning we may have the opportunity to see one. Eclipse. This morning A total moon eclipse will occur which will carry the so -called “blood moon”, a darkening and redness of our satellite caused by the transit of the earth between this and the sun. The total eclipse will be visible throughout Latin America and can also be seen from the center and western the Iberian Peninsula and from the Canary Islands. The rest of the Spanish territory can only see an eclipse Penumbral de Luna. The gloom will begin to obscure the moon in Spain Around 5 in the morningPeninsular time (CET), but the partial eclipse will not begin until after 6 in the morning. The eclipse will reach the totality at 07:26 CET, at which time the moon will also be reddened in its path after the earth. Blood moon? This is the phenomenon known as Blood moon and it is common in lunar eclipses. Although it may seem contradictory, this color change is produced by the same phenomenon that gives blue to our heavens. Let’s start with the most basic. The moon lighting is because it reflects sunlight. The light that emanates the sun, although we associate it with yellowish or orange tones is, in reality, white. This target is actually the result of the fact that the sun emits light in a wide range of frequencies in the visible spectrum, whose sum generates white light. This fan of colors is what we can see in the rainbow or when we pass sunlight through a prism. Guilt of the atmosphere. When this white and multicolored light reaches the terrestrial atmosphere, This breaks it down as if it were a prism. The blue light, with a shorter wavelength, tends to spread when crossing with the gases of the atmosphere, bouncing and reaching our perspective as if it arrived from the sky. However, the longest wavelengths, reddish tones, They blur to a lesser extent and continue on their way. This makes the shadow of our planet project a kind of reddish ring around. It is this ring is what gives that copper color to the blood moon. This interaction between the solar rays and the atmosphere of our planet is also responsible for the sunrises and sunsets also becoming red. When the sun rises or puts on, its rays must cross a greater portion of atmosphere. This means that when they reach our environment they have lost dispersed the short wavelengths, that is, the blue tones. This leaves only the most reddish tones of these moments of the day. From superstition to science. If eclipses have always been surrounded by mystery and superstitions, the ominous red -dyed moon did not go unnoticed by our ancestors. Different cultures have developed various superstitions and beliefs related to this phenomenon. Today we know the cause of the unique phenomenon. Although the blood moon may have lost this mysticism, its spectacularity can still be appreciated. Preamble of a solar eclipse. Solar eclipses always come from a lunar eclipse that occurs about two weeks before or after this. The eclipse of this morning is one of these dual eclipses. And is that March 29 A partial solar eclipse will be produced that will be visible in part of the northern hemisphere, including Spain. In Xataka | Prepare for the first total lunar eclipse of the year: the main astronomical events of March 2025 and where they will see Image | NASA Scientific Visualization Studio

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