This week, spacefans, we are going full lunatic with the upcoming eclipse on Sunday night!
RED MOON RISING
On Sunday, September 27 2015, there will be a celestial event unseen since 1982: a supermoon in combination with a lunar eclipse. Despite rumours of apocalyptic omens, this is a natural event that has occurred five times since the beginning of the 20th century. In the US, the moon will begin being cast into shadow around 20:11 EDT, and the the eclipse will peak at 22:47 EDT, or 02:11 UTC and 02:47 UTC respectively. I will be setting my alarm clock and hoping for clear skies. However, if anyone is cursed by inclement weather, NASA will be providing a livestream of the event from 20:00 EDT until 23:30 EDT. NASA has also included an explanatory short video which is well worth a minute of your time.
The Moon becomes a ‘blood moon’ because as it passes into the Earth’s shadow, the light it receives from the Sun is refracted around the Earth, almost all light apart from red is filtered out by particulates in our atmosphere. This full Moon will also be a ‘supermoon’, as it will appear slightly larger than normal due to its being closer to our planet on that particular orbit — sometimes up to 14% bigger. Supermoons are quite common; as many a six per year may happen, but the combination with a full eclipse is rare.
“Because the orbit of the moon is not a perfect circle, the moon is sometimes closer to the Earth than at other times during its orbit,” said Noah Petro, deputy project scientist for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “When the moon is farthest away it’s known as apogee, and when it’s closest it’s known as perigee. On Sept. 27, we’re going to have a perigee full moon—the closest full moon of the year.”
At perigee, the moon is about 31,000 miles closer to Earth than at apogee. That distance equates to more than once around the circumference of Earth. Its looming proximity makes the moon appear 14 percent larger and 30 percent brighter in the sky than an apogee full moon, which sparked the term “supermoon.”
“There’s no physical difference in the moon,” Petro said. “It just appears slightly bigger in the sky. It’s not dramatic, but it does look larger.”
Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Caltech
The eclipse should be visible for up to two billion people around the world, weather permitting. TMC would love all of you to observe this unusual event as you will not get another chance until 2033, so grab something or someone warm and head outside! TMC also recommends safely confining your lycanthropes, as they may become confused and exhibit signs of stress.
TENSE NIGHT IN STORE FOR LUNAR RECONNAISSANCE ORBITER
The lunar orbiter (LRO) has in fact been though three previous eclipses and survived. The team does have a routine, but they still have to pay very close attention.
Dawn Myers at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland said “We have a method and it works well, It’s always stressful during the approach of the eclipse, but we follow the same procedures every time and we haven’t had any trouble”
It is a testament to the engineers who designed the craft that it can survive the extreme temperature changes it has to endure during an eclipse, particularly in that it was designed for a 100 day mission with no exposure to such hazards as an eclipse. It is usual practice during an eclipse to shut everything down to conserve power, though much valuable scientific data could be gathered by keeping an instrument switched on.
“Our power engineer looked at past eclipses and evaluated whether it would be feasible for us to leave an instrument on,” Myers said. “He told us if the voltage drops below a certain level, we would have to shut the instrument off, but that hasn’t happened yet.”
Image Credit: NASA
The mission team decided to try and see if they could leave an instrument switched on for the duration of pervious eclipses, they chose one called Diviner, a radiometer that can measure the reflectivity of light bounced from the Moon’s surface as well as its temperature. They succeeded, and not just that, they managed to keep a star tracker and heaters going too!
“The rapid cooling of the surface during an eclipse gives us a view of how the top few centimeters cool differently than during a normal lunar night,” The team said. “From this we learn about the size of particles at the surface.”
They hope that information gathered could help future decision makers with regards to a possible lunar colony.
MORE FABULOUS PLUTO PICTURES RELEASED
MORE FABULOUS PLUTO PICTURES RELEASEDI am sure most of you know by now how much we ‘heart’ this intriguing little world and all of its many mysteries. Each week NASA and the New Horizons team present us with yet more marvels to please and delight your eyes, and hopefully inspire the occasional synapse to fire in an enquiring fashion. These are really rather awesome, enjoy!
Image credit: NASA
What you see in the middle of the picture are mountains 11000ft(3500m) high and cut by what looks like glaciers, it also shows the layers in Pluto’s atmosphere.
Now look closer!
Image Credit: NASA
The flat region on the right is Sputnik Planum at the ‘heart’ of Pluto.
“This image really makes you feel you are there, at Pluto, surveying the landscape for yourself,” said New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern, of the Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colorado. “But this image is also a scientific bonanza, revealing new details about Pluto’s atmosphere, mountains, glaciers and plains.”
“In addition to being visually stunning, these low-lying hazes hint at the weather changing from day to day on Pluto, just like it does here on Earth,” said Will Grundy, lead of the New Horizons Composition team from Lowell Observatory, Flagstaff, Arizona.
Image Credit: NASA
Glacier detail possibly coated with nitrogen ices.
Image Credit: NASA
“Valley Glaciers on Pluto: Ice (probably frozen nitrogen) that appears to have accumulated on the uplands on the right side of this 390-mile (630-kilometer) wide image is draining from Pluto’s mountains onto the informally named Sputnik Planum through the 2- to 5-mile (3- to 8- kilometer) wide valleys indicated by the red arrows. The flow front of the ice moving into Sputnik Planum is outlined by the blue arrows. The origin of the ridges and pits on the right side of the image remains uncertain.”
“We did not expect to find hints of a nitrogen-based glacial cycle on Pluto operating in the frigid conditions of the outer solar system,” said Alan Howard, a member of the mission’s Geology, Geophysics and Imaging team from the University of Virginia, Charlottesville. “Driven by dim sunlight, this would be directly comparable to the hydrological cycle that feeds ice caps on Earth, where water is evaporated from the oceans, falls as snow, and returns to the seas through glacial flow.”
“Pluto is surprisingly Earth-like in this regard,” added Stern, “and no one predicted it.”
This New Horizons mission seems to be chock full of neverending surprises which are confounding scientists everywhere! What we love about it? Every week we see things we never knew could happen or even be possible, which is why we love exploring space.
Stay tuned, space fans! This week, we focused on a blood moon. Next week, we have a strong interest in a certain red planet.
This article originally appeared on TheMittani.com, written by Feiryred.
