Moon Archives

May 6, 2022May 6, 2022 by Carolyn Collins Petersen

Lunar Samples Have Been in the Deep Freeze for 50 Years. NASA Finally has the Right Technology to Study Them Properly

Curators handling lunar rocks take extreme care to keep these materials from contamination as they work with them in cold boxes using gloves and protective gear. This frozen Apollo 17 sample is being studied in a nitrogen-purged glove box at NASA Johnson Space Flight Center. Courtesy NASA/Robert Markowitz.

Ever wonder what happened to all those collections of rocks and dust the Apollo astronauts brought back from the Moon? Some of those lunar samples were studied right away. Others made their way into a few museums and science centers and the desks of world leaders. Still others landed in storage at NASA Johnson’s Space Center in Houston. Some got stored at room temperature while others were put into a deep freeze. The idea was to preserve any traces of gases or water or possibly organic materials on them. Now, some of these lunar samples are at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, where they’re under examination for the first time in 50 years using new techniques not available during the Apollo years.

May 4, 2022May 4, 2022 by Matt Williams

NASA Announces the Winners of its Second Payload Challenge!

Lunar exploration has advanced considerably in the last two decades, with more countries sending robotic orbiters, landers, and rovers to the surface than ever before. These missions have taught us much about the Moon’s geological evolution, composition, environment, and resources. In a few years, this information will prove vital as NASA sends the first astronauts to the Moon since the Apollo Era (as part of the Artemis Program). They will be followed by many more crewed missions, which will eventually lead to the creation of lunar bases.

Alas, there is still a lot that we still need to know before regular, long-duration missions to the Moon can be conducted. To help fill in the gaps in our knowledge, HeroX launched the “Honey, I Shrunk the NASA Payload, the Sequel” Challenge in September 2020. With up to $800,000 in prizes, this competition sought innovative miniature payload designs that could collect information about the lunar environment and its potential resources. The competition’s winners were announced today during the Lunar Surface Innovation Consortium Spring meeting.

April 26, 2022April 26, 2022 by Nancy Atkinson

Eight Missions are Getting Extensions, Most Exciting: OSIRIS-REx is Going to Asteroid Apophis

An artist's illustration of NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft approaching asteroid Bennu with its sampling instrument extended. Image Credit: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona

NASA has granted mission extensions to eight different planetary missions, citing the continued excellent operations of the spacecraft, but more importantly, the sustained scientific productivity of these missions, “and the potential to deepen our knowledge and understanding of the solar system and beyond.” Each mission will be extended for three more years.

One of the most exciting extensions gives a new mission to the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft, sending it to one of the most infamous asteroids of them all, the potentially hazardous asteroid Apophis.

April 18, 2022April 18, 2022 by Nancy Atkinson

One Giant Impact Made the Two Halves of the Moon so Different

Global map of the Moon, as seen from the Clementine mission, showing the lunar near- and farside. If we're going back to the Moon, we'll need a Lunar GPS. Credit: NASA.

The South Pole-Aitken Basin on the Moon formed from a gigantic impact about 4.3 billion years ago. But that impact may have changed everything about the Moon, and explain why the lunar farside looks so different from the nearside, the side we see from Earth.

April 13, 2022April 13, 2022 by Evan Gough

Five Rover Teams Chosen to Help Explore the Moon’s South Pole

Moon base — Illustration of NASA astronauts on the lunar South Pole. Mission ideas we see today have at least some heritage from the early days of the Space Age. Credit: NASA

The Moon may seem barren, and it is. However, a certain species of inquisitive primates is still very interested in exploring the Moon, uncovering its secrets and maybe establishing a longer-term presence there. But thirsty primates need water, and there’s only one primary source on the Moon: the frozen water in shadowed craters at the lunar poles.

April 5, 2022April 5, 2022 by Matt Williams

Cultured Meat Could Keep Astronauts fed in Space

The term “cultured meat” has become a bit of a buzzword for the health food industry. This refers to meat produced in a lab using in vitro cell cultures derived from animal proteins. For many, this “alternative meat” is vital to combatting climate change by removing one of the chief causes of deforestation (making room for cattle ranches) and global warming (bovine methane emissions). For others, it’s an environmentally-friendly way of ensuring food security in an era of climate change.

But what about as a means of feeding astronauts on long-duration missions or living for extended periods beyond Earth? In this case, cultured meat would be a way of fulfilling the dietary needs of astronauts who would otherwise be entirely dependent on vegetable proteins. The possibility is currently being explored by the European Space Agency (ESA) and could be a game-changer for future missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond!

March 22, 2022March 22, 2022 by Evan Gough

The Strange Swirls on the Lunar Surface are Somehow Related to Topography

This is an image of the Reiner Gamma lunar swirl on the Moon, supplied by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. Credits: NASA LRO WAC science team

The Moon is the most studied object in space. But our nearest neighbour still holds a few mysteries. One of those mysteries is the lunar swirls. These strange serpentine features are brighter than their surroundings and are much younger. They’re not associated with any specific composition of lunar rock, and they appear to overlay other surface features like craters and ejecta.

Scientists have been puzzling over the swirls for decades, and with lunar outposts looming as a real possibility, understanding these swirls takes on new importance. Now a new study finds a link between lunar topography and the swirls.

March 20, 2022March 20, 2022 by Andy Tomaswick

Lunar Rovers Could be Dropped Into Lava Tubes to Explore Their Depths

Technical challenges abound when doing space exploration. Some areas are so remote or isolated that engineers need to build a special purpose-made vehicle to visit them. That is certainly the case for some of the more remote parts of the moon – especially the as-yet unexplored caves on the moon. Now a graduate student at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) seems to have developed just such an access system.

March 18, 2022March 18, 2022 by Nancy Atkinson

Chris Hadfield Drives in the Desert With a new Lunar Rover Prototype

The FLEX (Flexible Logistics & Exploration) rover. Credit: Astrolab.

As the Apollo astronauts found out, mobility is everything. Apollo’s Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV) – sometimes called the Lunar Rover or Moon Buggy – completely changed how the astronauts could explore the lunar surface.

Harrison Schmitt of Apollo 17 said, “Without it, the major scientific discoveries of Apollo 15, 16, and 17 would not have been possible, and our current understanding of lunar evolution would not have been possible.”

March 18, 2022March 18, 2022 by Nancy Atkinson

Now That is a Big Rocket. Space Launch System Rolls out to the Launch pad for a Series of Tests

NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket with the Orion spacecraft aboard is seen illuminated by spotlights atop a mobile launcher at Launch Complex 39B, Friday, March 18, 2022, after being rolled out to the launch pad for the first time at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky

Under the full Moon, NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket rolled out to the launchpad for the first time. The journey began at the iconic Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center, with the gigantic stack of the mega rocket arriving at Launch Pad 39B in preparation for a series of final checkouts before its Artemis I test flight.

The four-mile trip for SLS and the Orion spacecraft, on top of the crawler-transporter took 10 hours and 28 minutes, and the 3.5-million-pound rocket and spacecraft arrived at the pad at 4:15 a.m. on March 18.