OH UFO!

The Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite ( LCROSS ) is a robotic spacecraft operated by NASA , which is currently orbiting the Earth and is targeted for impact on the Moon early October 2009. [ 2 ] LCROSS is designed to watch as the launch vehicle's spent Centaur upper stage, with a nominal impact mass of 2,305 kg (5,081 lb), strikes the Cabeus A crater [ 3 ] near the south pole of the Moon (projected impact at the lunar South Pole is currently: Oct 9, 2009 at 11:30 UTC). LCROSS was launched on June 18, 2009, together with the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter as part of the shared Lunar Precursor Robotic Program , the first American mission to the Moon in over ten years. Together, LCROSS and LRO form the vanguard of NASA's return to the Moon. [ 4 ] Early in the morning on August 22, 2009, LCROSS ground controllers discovered an anomaly due to a sensor issue, the spacecraft burned through 309 pounds of fuel, resulting in more than half of remaining fuel at the t

T he International Space Station ( ISS ) is an internationally developed research facility currently being assembled in Low Earth Orbit . On-orbit construction of the station began in 1998 and is scheduled to be complete by 2011, with operations continuing until at least 2015. [ 6 ] The ISS orbits at an altitude of approximately 350 kilometres (220 mi ) above the surface of the Earth, [ 7 ] [ 8 ] [ 9 ] travelling at an average speed of 27,724 kilometres (17,227 mi) per hour, completing 15.7 orbits per day. [ 7 ] The station can be seen from the Earth with the naked eye, [ 10 ] and, as of 2009, is the largest artificial satellite in Earth orbit, with a mass larger than that of any previous space station . [ 11 ] The ISS is a joint project among the space agencies of the United States ( National Aeronautics and Space Administration —NASA), Russia ( Russian Federal Space Agency —RKA), Japan ( Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency —JAXA), Canada ( Canadian Space Agency —CSA) and ten E

The moon has been facing Earth like this for more than 4 billion years. Just like Earth rotates on its axis once every day with respect to stars, the moon also rotates on its axis with respect to stars. Since the moon keeps facing Earth this means that the moon needs to travel 360 degrees around Earth with respect to stars in order to rotate 360 degrees on its axis with respect to stars. When the moon first formed it was very close to Earth and it orbited Earth once every few hours, today this period is 27 days, and as the moon continues to recede this period will continue to increase; the greater the distance from Earth the greater this period becomes. When this period becomes 50 days, for example, this also means that it will take the moon 50 days to rotate 360 degrees on its axis with respect to stars. So as the moon recedes from Earth its spin with respect to stars slows down, that is, it loses rotational kinetic energy (this is different from moon's kinetic energy due to moon&

On certain nights, an arresting green line pierces the sky above NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. It's a laser directed at the moon, visible when the air is humid. No, we're not repelling an invasion. Instead, we're tracking our own spacecraft. Goddard's Laser Ranging Facility directing a laser (green beam) toward the LRO spacecraft in orbit around the moon (white disk). The moon has been deliberately over-exposed to show the laser. Credit: Tom Zagwodzki/Goddard Space Flight Center Print-resolution copy 28 times per second, engineers at NASA Goddard fire a laser that travels about 250,000 miles to hit the minivan-sized Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft moving at nearly 3,600 miles per hour as it orbits the moon. The first laser ranging effort to track a spacecraft beyond low-Earth orbit on a daily basis produces distance measurements accurate to about four inches (10 centimeters). For comparison, the microwave stations tracking LRO m

Wormholes (معارج) Naturally occurring wormholes connect distant black holes. Look up to the night sky and select a star as a destination. Can any human reach this star by just walking few steps? General relativity explained a mechanism to contract this huge distance into few meters. Albert Einstein called this mechanism ‘bridges’ in space-time. Today scientists call them wormholes. A wormhole would act as a shortcut connecting two distant regions in the universe. A wormhole contracts the distance between two doorways placed separately anywhere in the universe. Example, consider a galaxy 100 million light years away. When you look today from Earth to that galaxy, you will not see it as it is today, but rather as it was 100 million years ago. This is because light took 100 million years to travel all that distance. But if you take a journey inside a wormhole from Earth to that galaxy, you would reach that galaxy today. So when you reach it today, you will see it as it is today, not as

By Mike Swift mswift@mercurynews.com Posted: 09/24/2009 09:34:45 PM PDT Updated: 09/24/2009 10:07:25 PM PDT A probe controlled from Ames Research Center that will hit the moon in two weeks may help unlock a major new scientific riddle, following NASA's stunning announcement Wednesday that the lunar surface is laced with water. LCROSS (Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite), a mission controlled from Moffett Field in Mountain View, is scheduled to smash into a crater near the moon's south pole in the early hours of Oct. 9. Scientists will analyze the resulting debris plume for signs of large amounts of ice that may have persisted for eons in the extreme cold of perpetually shadowed craters. The LCROSS mission had been about human exploration, trying to answer the question of whether there is enough ice on the moon to aid human exploration. The components of water — hydrogen and oxygen — could be used for life support or rocket fuel, if and when NASA returns astronauts t