A Quote by Sir Martin Rees, Astronomer Royal of Great Britain



Telescopes are in some ways like time machines...
They reveal galaxies so far away that their light has taken billions of years to reach us. We in astronomy have an advantage in studying the universe, in that we can actually see the past. We owe our existence to stars, because they make the atoms of which we are formed. So if you are romantic you can say we are literally starstuff. If you're less romantic you can say we're the nuclear waste from the fuel that makes stars shine. We've made so many advances in our understanding. A few centuries ago, the pioneer navigators learnt the size and shape of our Earth, and the layout of the continents. We are now just learning the dimensions and ingredients of our entire cosmoc, and can at last make some sense of our cosmic habitat.



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Tuesday, June 23, 2009

NASA Probe Orbits Moon

A NASA spacecraft has started its one-year mission to map the moon.

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter entered the moon's orbit early Tuesday following a four-and-a-half day journey from earth, the space agency said.


The LRO will perform a series of four engine burns over the next four days to position itself for a "commissioning phase" orbit, during which time its seven onboard instruments will be brought online and checked out by engineers.


The LRO will transition to its primary mission orbit—about 31 miles above the moon--about 60 days later, according to NASA.


For the next year, the LRO will use an array of scanners and tools to create 3D, high-resolution maps of the lunar surface while peering into some of the darkest corners of earth's closest celestial neighbor.


NASA said it expects the LRO to return more data about the moon than any previous mission.



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