Lunar Dust Levitation

  Nov 30, 2012 Static electric charge might help to explain the glowing haze sometimes seen rising 100 kilometers above the Moon’s horizon. Between May 1966 and January 1968, NASA launched the Surveyor missions to the Moon. Each Surveyor spacecraft weighed approximately 450 kilograms and was designed to soft-land on…

Continue reading

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Getting Sloshed

  Nov 29, 2012 Is hot gas sloshing in a gravitational wine glass—or is astrophysicists’ reasoning going in a circle? A recent press release explains: “Like wine in a glass, vast clouds of hot gas are sloshing back and forth….” The blue image is assembled electronically from x-ray data and superimposed on…

Continue reading

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Number Three

Albedo and elevation images for Oppia crater on Vesta

  Nov 26, 2012 New images of the third largest asteroid reveal etched chasms and deep holes. The Dawn mission continues in orbit around Vesta. Vesta is ranked high among minor planets, with Pallas (531 kilometers) and Ceres (952 kilometers) as its larger cousins. Ceres is also part of the…

Continue reading

Print Friendly, PDF & Email