Astronomy Picture of the Day: Harsh sunlight slashes across the Moon!

 

#NASA, #Space, #astronomy, #διάστημα, #Moon

Harsh sunlight slashes across the Moon, throwing knife-edge shadows across a world that had never known a human footprint until this hour. On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong—first man to walk another world—raised his camera and caught this moment. In the frame stands the spindly lunar module Eagle, and beside it Buzz Aldrin, sealed in his spacesuit, unrolling a long sheet of gleaming foil. That humble ribbon of metal was the Solar Wind Composition Experiment: a silent trap set facing the Sun. For 77 minutes it collected the invisible rain of particles streaming outward from our star—atoms of the Sun itself, caught on the airless surface of the Moon. When the astronauts packed up, they brought the foil home along with 22 kilograms of lunar rock and dust. Laboratories on Earth would later read the Sun’s chemical signature in those captured atoms. A single photograph from Tranquility Base: two men, a fragile spacecraft, and a sheet of foil harvesting the solar wind on the first day humanity stood on another world. Image Credit: Apollo 11, NASA (scanned by Kipp Teague)

Astronomy Picture of the Day: Earth and the far side of the Moon!

 

#NASA, #Space, #astronomy, #διάστημα,#Earth, #Moon

A rare shot: Earth and the far side of the Moon captured by Chang'e-6

This historic image graced the cover of the latest issue of *Nature* magazine, vividly demonstrating the triumph of the Chinese lunar mission.

Astronomy Picture Of The Day: A total solar eclipse from space!

 

#NASA, #Space, #astronomy, #διάστημα, #Sun, #TotalSunEclipse, #Moon

This is what a total solar eclipse looks like from space. Images from NASA.

Wild seeing the eclipse as an actual moon shadow sweeping across the planet.

Astronomy Picture Of The Day: Planets and the Moon!

 

#NASA, #Space, #astronomy, #διάστημα, #moon

A composite image created while preserving the relative apparent angular sizes. Captured using an SW150/750 telescope, Eq2-3 mount, ZWO462mc camera, and a 3x Barlow lens. Author: Zhenya Glukhanyuk.

Astronomy Picture Of The Day: Most lunar water is not polar ice but is chemically bound within the Moon's interior

 

#Astronomy, #NASA , #Space, #διάστημα, #moon

Black Hole

For a long time, the Moon was considered virtually waterless. A turning point came after 2009, when missions revealed the presence of ice in the permanently shadowed regions of the poles. However, high-precision analysis of Apollo samples indicates that the bulk of the water is not in a free state but exists as hydroxyl groups "locked" within mineral structures. The key to this discovery lies in findings of apatite, a mineral that traps water within its crystals. This shifts our perspective on the Moon's origins and the "water budget" of the Earth-Moon system following the giant impact 4.5 billion years ago. If water is bound deep within the interior, it is crucial to understand its distribution and the actual quantity present. NASA’s *Lunar Trailblazer* orbiter—launched in February 2025 to map lunar water—was intended to provide these answers. However, the spacecraft was lost due to a configuration error following its separation from the launch vehicle.

Astronomy Picture Of The Day: The Moon "emerges" from behind Earth!

 

#Astronomy, #NASA , #Space, #διάστημα, #moon, #Earth

Japan's Himawari-9 weather satellite captured a rare and mesmerizing moment: the Moon passing right along the edge of our planet. This is no mirage, but a real cosmic event that reminds us just how closely celestial bodies are connected.

Astronomy Picture Of The Day: Earth vs Moon!

 

#NASA, #Space, #astronomy, #διάστημα, #Moon

Earth vs Moon: A Striking Size Comparison The Moon may dominate our night sky and feel enormous when it rises full and bright, but it’s actually a modest companion compared to our http://planet.Earth’s diameter: 12,742 km (7,918 miles) Moon’s diameter: 3,474–3,475 km (2,159 miles) That means the Moon is only about 27% the diameter of Earth. You could fit roughly four Moons side-by-side across Earth’s equator. In terms of volume, Earth is about 50 times larger Despite its smaller size, our Moon is still impressive: it’s the fifth-largest moon in the entire Solar System (after Ganymede, Titan, Callisto, and Io) and by far the largest relative to its parent planet. It’s also the only world beyond Earth where humans have walked, driven, and explored. This cosmic duo perfectly illustrates how special our Earth-Moon system really is — a rocky planet with a surprisingly large natural satellite that stabilizes our tilt, creates tides, and lights up our nights. Credits: NASA • NASA Earth Observatory • NASA Scientific Visualization Studio

Astronomy Picture Of The Day: The moon’s diameter

 

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Black Hole@konstructivizm

The moon’s diameter is the same size as the USA from the east to the west coast

Astronomy Picture Of The Day: Apollo 16: John Young and the Shadowed Lunar Treasure

 

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April 21, 1972. High on the lunar highlands at the Descartes landing site, Apollo 16 commander John Young kneels beside a massive boulder during the mission’s third moonwalk. With focused curiosity, he examines the rock at Station 13 — a moment forever frozen in time by fellow astronaut Charlie Duke’s camera.What made this spot special? Tucked beneath the overhanging boulder lay a rare prize: permanently shadowed soil that had been shielded from the harsh solar radiation and micrometeorites for millions of years. By collecting this pristine material, scientists gained a unique window into the Moon’s ancient history — a time capsule untouched by sunlight.Charlie Duke later quipped that on Earth (especially back home in Texas), sticking your hand under a big rock might end with a nasty surprise from a scorpion or snake. On the Moon? Nothing but silence and geology. No wildlife, no danger — just pure scientific exploration.This iconic image captures the spirit of Apollo at its finest: bold astronauts pushing the boundaries of human discovery on another world. Image Credit: NASA

Astronomy Picture Of The Day: The Last Footsteps on Another World!!!

 

#NASA, #Space, #astronomy, #διάστημα, #moon

Black Hole@konstructivizm

AS17-140-21388 December 1972 — Taurus-Littrow Valley, the Moon.Astronaut Eugene Cernan, commander of Apollo 17, walks across the lunar surface toward the Lunar Roving Vehicle during one of the final extravehicular activities of the Apollo program. The photograph was taken by his crewmate, geologist-astronaut Harrison Schmitt, the only scientist to walk on the Moon.This single image captures the end of an era. Cernan, fully illuminated by the harsh lunar sun, moves with the confident, bouncing gait that only the Moon’s one-sixth gravity allows. Behind him stands the Lunar Module Challenger, their home on the Moon, while the Earth hangs silently in the black sky above the jagged mountains of Taurus-Littrow.While Cernan and Schmitt explored the valley — driving the rover, collecting samples, and leaving behind scientific instruments — Ronald Evans orbited alone in the Command Module America, waiting for their return.This was humanity’s sixth and final lunar landing. No one has been back since.Cernan would later say that as he climbed the ladder to leave the Moon, he looked down at his own footprints and whispered to himself: “We’re leaving. We’re not coming back anytime soon.”That photograph — AS17-140-21388 — remains one of the most powerful images of the entire Apollo program: a lone explorer on an ancient world, at the very edge of what humanity has ever achieved.

Astronomy Picture Of The Day: Now we know why the Moon has 2 different faces

 

#NASA, #Space, #astronomy, #διάστημα,#moon

Black Hole@konstructivizm

About 4.3 billion years ago, something really big slammed into the Moon's far side and carved out a crater 2,500 km wide, one of the largest impact structures in the solar system. The energy released was roughly equivalent to a trillion atomic bombs, and the consequences are still written into the Moon today. The collision didn't just scar the surface. It scrambled the far side's deep interior, sending heat-producing elements toward the near side. That's why the near side stayed volcanically active for billions of years longer, forming the dark flat plains visible from Earth, while the far side went geologically quiet. Water tells the same story. Deep inside the Moon, water isn't liquid, it's locked inside minerals under extreme pressure. The impact destroyed or expelled much of those water-bearing minerals on the far side. Samples returned by China's Chang'e-6 mission confirm the far side's mantle contains far less water than the near side's, a scar frozen in rock for over four billion years. Most surprisingly, the Moon's magnetic field, thought to have simply faded away. It actually rebounded around 2.8 billion years ago. Scientists believe the impact injected so much heat into the Moon's core that it temporarily restarted its internal engine one last time, before going dark for good. Credit: Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS)