Latest Lunar Prospector Stories

In October 1963, two cartographers with the Air Force Aeronautical Chart and Information Center saw a strange glow on the moon. Using the 24-inch refractor telescope at Lowell observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, James Greenacre and Edward Barr saw a deep, ruby-red glow coming from the crater Aristarchus. The sighting might have been glowing gas from volcanic activity, and a second sighting in November of that year was verified by Dr. John Hall, Director of the observatory at the time....

For four days every month the Moon passes through the magnetic field of the Earth and parts of the lunar surface are charged with static electricity. Next week Dr Mike Hapgood of the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory will present a model at the Royal Astronomical Society National Astronomy Meeting in Preston, which suggests that this charging may increase after the year 2012 and become an important issue for future lunar explorers.Once in every orbit around the Earth the Moon moves through the...

Near the end of the mission of Apollo 16, on April 24, 1972, just before returning back home to Earth, the three astronauts released one last scientific experiment: a small "subsatellite" called PFS-2 to orbit the Moon about every 2 hours.The intention? Joining an earlier subsatellite PFS-1, released by Apollo 15 astronauts eight months earlier, PFS-2 was to measure charged particles and magnetic fields all around the Moon as the Moon orbited Earth. The low orbits of both...

In 1959, a spaceship fell out of the lunar sky and hit the ground near the Sea of Serenity. The ship itself was shattered, but its mission was a success. Luna 2 from the Soviet Union had became the first manmade object to "land" on the Moon.This may seem hard to believe, but Luna 2 started a trend: Crash landing on the Moon, on purpose. Dozens of spaceships have done it.NASA's first kamikazes were the Rangers, built and launched in the early 1960s. Five times, these car-sized...

By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - NASA plans to send a two-ton probe crashing into a crater on the moon in hopes of discovering if it harbors water that could be used for manned missions, the U.S. space agency said on Monday. The $73 million probe, to be built by Northrop Grumman Corp., is set to be launched in 2008 aboard a rocket also carrying a sophisticated lunar mapper. "We're going to learn a lot from this," said program manager Dan Andrews of NASA's Ames...

COLUMBUS , Ohio -- Ohio State University planetary scientists have found the remains of ancient lunar impacts that may have helped create the surface feature commonly called the "man in the moon."Their study suggests that a large object hit the far side of the moon and sent a shock wave through the moon's core and all the way to the Earth-facing side. The crust recoiled -- and the moon bears the scars from that encounter even today.The finding holds implications for lunar...

If a planet or moon has only a slight rotational tilt, a tall mountain or crater rim can be forever bathed in sunlight. In 1994, NASA's Clementine mission found candidates for such "peaks of eternal light" on the moon's north and south poles. Today, the European Space Agency's SMART-1 spacecraft is orbiting the moon, hoping to confirm those peaks of light and find others as well. In this essay, SMART-1 principal scientist Bernard Foing explains why such sites would be ideal places...

NASA -- On the Moon, many of the things that can kill you are invisible: breathtaking vacuum, extreme temperatures and space radiation top the list. Vacuum and temperature NASA can handle; spacesuits and habitats provide plenty of air and insulation. Radiation, though, is trickier.The surface of the Moon is baldly exposed to cosmic rays and solar flares, and some of that radiation is very hard to stop with shielding. Furthermore, when cosmic rays hit the ground, they produce a dangerous spray...

Settling alien worlds is thirsty work.Science@NASA -- The next time you look at the Moon, pause for a moment and let this thought sink in: People have actually walked on the Moon, and right now the wheels are in motion to send people there again. The goals this time around are more ambitious than they were in the days of the Apollo program. NASA's new Vision for Space Exploration spells out a long-term strategy of returning to the Moon as a step toward Mars and beyond. The Moon, so nearby and...

Come and get it? Some researchers believe there's water on the Moon in reach of human explorers.Science@NASA -- The first object in the night sky most of us ever saw, the Moon remains a mystery. Haunted by poets, looked upon by youngsters in love, studied intensely by astronomers for four centuries, examined by geologists for the last 50 years, walked upon by twelve humans, this is Earth's satellite. And as we look towards the Moon with thoughts of setting up a permanent home there, one new...