What's Up September 2010: The moon!

Get ready for International Observe the Moon Night on September 18.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Harvest moon
• Full moon
• moon phases
• NASA
• JPL
• Jet Propulsion Laboratory
• Jane Houston Jones
• Jupiter
• LRO
• Lunar Revconnaisance Orbiter

[XtianWestendShamer]

her name is J. HOUSTON - people get to work with her and say HOUSTON WE HAVE A PROBLEM.

[JPLnews]

@XtianWestendShamer ha ha! Yes people do say that to me but only once :-) Jane Houston Jones

[cosmicaxis]

Suggested reading: "Expanding Case for the UFO" - M K Jessup "Strange world of the moon" - Valdemar Axel Firsoff "Moongate: Suppressed Findings of the U.S. Space Program" - William Brian "Our ancestors came from outer space" - Maurice Chatelain "Somebody else is on the moon" - George H. Leonard "The moon puzzle" - N.O. Bergquist "Extraterrestrial Archaeology" - David Hatcher Childress "Moonscapes" by Rosemary Ellen Guiley Interesting photos: Nasa photo No. 11-37-5438 NASA photo No. 16 -19238

[NightSkyNetwork]

Contact your local NASA Night Sky Network astronomy club for International Observe the Moon Night and observe the moon through a telescope! There are more than 75 events being held across the U.S.

[lidarman5]

@innerJAG Between July 1969 and December 1972 six Apollo spacecraft put men on the moon. In total 24 Americans visited the moon but only 12 have walked on the moon and 6 have driven on the moon. These 24 Americans are the only people who have ever been outside Earth orbit and have seen the far side of the moon with their own eyes.

[BGenerous]

@fsierra3 You might be correct, but I don't really know. It seems the tidal forces may not generate torques around that axis, but they might generate out-of-plane forces that affect the orientation of the spin axes and orbit plane, until the spin axes are parallel to each other (and to the initial total angular momentum vector of the system) and the orbit plane is perpendicular to them.

[austpom333]

It must have been confusing in the early days when the moon moved but always faced the earth showing the same surface.

[fsierra3]

@BGenerous Thanks. Are rotations along an axis that contains the center of both objects affected by tidal locking. It seems to me that the mechanisms described in the article can't act upon rotations in that direction. Sorry to bother you.

[innerJAG]

"All six man lunar landing sites" I didn't realize we visited the moon more than once. Did other countries visit the moon as well?

[BGenerous]

@fsierra3 The Moon is tidally locked to always face the Earth. Wikipedia has a good article on tidal locking.