The Moons crust showing stretches according to scientists. Click for larger. Image: LRO / NASA

Just when we think we have something figured out.  Here’s one I just have to take their word for.

The LRO press release:

New images from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft show the moon’s crust is being stretched, forming minute valleys in a few small areas on the lunar surface. Scientists propose this geologic activity occurred less than 50 million years ago, which is considered recent compared to the moon’s age of more than 4.5 billion years.

A team of researchers analyzing high-resolution images obtained by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) show small, narrow trenches typically much longer than they are wide. This indicates the lunar crust is being pulled apart at these locations. These linear valleys, known as graben, form when the moon’s crust stretches, breaks and drops down along two bounding faults. A handful of these graben systems have been found across the lunar surface.

“We think the moon is in a general state of global contraction because of cooling of a still hot interior,” said Thomas Watters of the Center for Earth and Planetary Studies at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington, and lead author of a paper on this research appearing in the March issue of the journal Nature Geoscience. “The graben tell us forces acting to shrink the moon were overcome in places by forces acting to pull it apart. This means the contractional forces shrinking the moon cannot be large, or the small graben might never form.”

The weak contraction suggests that the moon, unlike the terrestrial planets, did not completely melt in the very early stages of its evolution. Rather, observations support an alternative view that only the moon’s exterior initially melted forming an ocean of molten rock.

In August 2010, the team used LROC images to identify physical signs of contraction on the lunar surface, in the form of lobe-shaped cliffs known as lobate scarps. The scarps are evidence the moon shrank globally in the geologically recent past and might still be shrinking today. The team saw these scarps widely distributed across the moon and concluded it was shrinking as the interior slowly cooled.

Based on the size of the scarps, it is estimated that the distance between the moon’s center and its surface shrank by approximately 300 feet. The graben were an unexpected discovery and the images provide contradictory evidence that the regions of the lunar crust are also being pulled apart.

“This pulling apart tells us the moon is still active,” said Richard Vondrak, LRO Project Scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. “LRO gives us a detailed look at that process.”

As the LRO mission progresses and coverage increases, scientists will have a better picture of how common these young graben are and what other types of tectonic features are nearby. The graben systems the team finds may help scientists refine the state of stress in the lunar crust.

“It was a big surprise when I spotted graben in the far side highlands,” said co-author Mark Robinson of the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University, principal investigator of LROC. “I immediately targeted the area for high-resolution stereo images so we could create a three-dimensional view of the graben. It’s exciting when you discover something totally unexpected and only about half the lunar surface has been imaged in high resolution. There is much more of the moon to be explored.”

The research was funded by the LRO mission, currently under NASA’s Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. LRO is managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

50 years ago today John Glenn became the first American astronaut to orbit the Earth.  A few are confused on this point thinking Glenn was the first American in space, that distinction belongs to Alan Shepard who flew the first (sub-orbital) spaceflight.  Incidentally, Shepard was the only Mercury Astronaut to walk on the moon as part of the Apollo 14 mission.  Anyway, the confusion might arise because of the name of the capsule Glenn flew: Freedom 7.  These two names are enough alike, well you get the idea.

The Mercury program used two different rockets to put the capsules into space: the Redstone and the Atlas. The program suffered some early failures: the first launch of a Mercury capsule on an Atlas rocket exploded and the first Redstone flight only achieved an altitude of about four inches. To be sure the program was safe for humans, the first beings to fly in the Mercury capsules were not men but a rhesus monkey named Sam and two chimps named Ham and Enos. Sam flew a “Little Joe” rocket, Ham a Redstone and Sam an Atlas. Even though all the primates made it back safely, the men chosen to fly were extremely brave and all had a active role in making the rockets and spacecraft safe.

You may have noticed the names both include a “7″.  Ever wonder why?  The Mercury program was named after the fleet-footed Roman god.  Each of the manned capsules were named by the astronauts who flew them.  The number “7″ was first added by Alan Shepard because his capsule was the seventh made.  The other program astronauts followed suit to honor the first seven project astronauts named by the fledgling NASA.

Credit: NASA / Video source

ESA is launching the Swarm mission later this year to study the Earth’s magnetic field.

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Bonjour!  I hope everyone is having a good Saturday.  Are you ready to play riddle?  I have one lined up for you, of course.  We’re starting a new cycle, but another bonus riddle is imminent.  I’m already working on it.

No, really.  I am.

Okay, onwards:

Another NASA image -- thanks, guys.

This is in the real world.

It has mass, and takes up space.

Its shape is NOT round.

Don't you wish you'd paid attention in class now? "Oh no, I'll NEVER use this stuff..."

This is a radiant body.

It does something that nothing else in its home range is known to do.

Something about this is a well-functioning electrical system.

This image was created by "oceanhopper". You are free to copy, but attribute the source.

This has a strange association with melancholy and death.

Don’t look to Greek mythology to answer this one.

This body has orbital bodies; one of which is thought to possibly contain life.

How obvious can I be? This incredible image by Diane Minton.

And that’s that.  Now, I’ll be in the comments (as usual), but you know how lucky I’ve been with the internet lately, so if I crash and burn, I’ll catch up.

Aw! Isn't he cute? This is a tiny jumping spider, staring intently into the camera.

APEX's image of the Taurus Molecular Cloud. Click for larger. Image: ESO

The APEX telescope is working great!

APEX, short for Atacama Pathfinder Experiment Telescope is a 12-meter diameter telescope used to observe the Universe in millimeter- and submillimeter-wavelength radiation. APEX is a collaboration between the Max-Planck-Institut fur Radioastronomie (MPIfR), the Onsala Space Observatory (OSO), and ESO, with operations of the telescope entrusted to ESO. APEX is located in Chile on the Chajnantor plateau.

I was going to make a chart showing the location, problem was while I had the general location almost exact I thought that bright star was different than what they are saying so I bagged the effort. Turns out the ESO included a locator chart as part of the release. I know, I should have known they would do a thorough job.

I’ve included part of the press release and you can get the complete release and more images by clicking the link below.

About the image from the ESO:

The Taurus Molecular Cloud, in the constellation of Taurus (The Bull), lies about 450 light-years from Earth. This image shows two parts of a long, filamentary structure in this cloud, which are known as Barnard 211 and Barnard 213. Their names come from Edward Emerson Barnard’s photographic atlas of the “dark markings of the sky”, compiled in the early 20th century. In visible light, these regions appear as dark lanes, lacking in stars. Barnard correctly argued that this appearance was due to “obscuring matter in space”.

The upper-right part of the filament shown here is Barnard 211, while the lower-left part is Barnard 213. The millimetre-range observations from the LABOCA camera on APEX, which reveal the heat glow of the cosmic dust grains, are shown here in orange tones, and are superimposed on a visible light image of the region, which shows the rich background of stars. The bright star above the filament is Tauri, while the one partially visible at the left-hand edge of the image is HD 27482. Both stars are closer to us than the filament, and are not associated with it.

Observations show that Barnard 213 has already fragmented and formed dense cores — as illustrated by the bright knots of glowing dust — and star formation has already happened. However, Barnard 211 is in an earlier stage of its evolution; the collapse and fragmentation is still taking place, and will lead to star formation in the future. This region is therefore an excellent place for astronomers to study how Barnard’s “dark markings of the sky” play a crucial part in the lifecycle of stars.

The observations were made by Alvaro Hacar (Observatorio Astronomico Nacional-IGN, Madrid, Spain) and collaborators. The LABOCA camera operates on the 12-metre APEX telescope, on the plateau of Chajnantor in the Chilean Andes, at an altitude of 5000 metres. APEX is a pathfinder for the next generation submillimetre telescope, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), which is being built and operated on the same plateau.

The MIT Admissions Office challenge:

“2012 is the anniversary of an old MIT balloon hack, so we put a letter in all of the Early Action admit tubes telling them we wanted them to hack the tubes somehow, and set up http://hackthetubes.mitadmissions.org to collect responses,” says Chris Peterson, Admissions office counselor, as reported on BoingBoing. “Lots of them are great, but this one, from Erin King (MIT ’16) in Georgia, is the best.”

This video is documentation of Erin King’s response and it’s great!  Erin, you deserve a hearty well done!!

Here’s Erin’s thoughts from the YouTube video source.

Welcome to the bonus riddle.  Remember, the comments are closed until tomorrow, when we’ll open the riddle for anyone to try if it hasn’t been solved yet.  Here are the people who are eligible to send in three guesses by email:

Adrianus V, Dwight, Roger, Rob, Alex, Patrick, Kristian, Hugo, the Gregster, Andy, Gary, George, Claudia, Suzanne, Jeff Greene, Jon, and Jerry.

Tom and I will only verify receipt of your guesses, we will not comment.  We do verify your identity, also.

Ready?  Here you go:

This is a modern discovery.

Don’t look to WikiPedia to find the answer on this one.

It carries the name of a more well-known object.

This is near.

This is sometimes called “minor”, but that’s not what we usually call it.

Look at this image:

This beauty, image by Giovanni Dall'Orto, holds the key to your answer. The image is under copyright, so don't lift it from the blog, please!

That is your final clue.

There you go.  Good luck everybody, and I’ll let you know how it went tomorrow.

The first flight of ESA’s Vega rocket occurred yesterday.

The payload consisted of two Italian satellites: ASI’s LARES laser relativity satellite and the University of Bologna’s ALMASat-1. Flight VV01 will also carry seven picosatellites provided by European universities: e-St@r (Italy), Goliat (Romania), MaSat-1 (Hungary), PW-Sat (Poland), Robusta (France), UniCubeSat GG (Italy) and Xatcobeo (Spain).

One of Italian satellites aims to put Einstein to the test – this is VERY cool stuff.

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Don’t forget about the Bonus riddle and I’m thinking about having a Second Chance Riddle this Saturday, need to hook up with Marian on this before it’s for sure, but if all goes well.

Dawn shows Vesta's battered surface. Click for larger. Image Credit: NASA/ JPL-Caltech/ UCLA/ MPS/ DLR/ IDA

Craters look like bumps to you?  Try this.

I was looking at this image and was kind of surprised at the number of small craters.  The spacecraft was only ~118 miles (190 km) above the surface, mission managers are pretty confident in their “road map” LOL.

What really is amazing is the number of “weathered” craters, some of them are almost eroded away, they must be truly ancient. Before you say it, no, there is no “weather” as we know it on Vesta so the process is from what ever was/is hitting the surface over the eons. It all adds up over time.

The Dawn caption

In this Dawn FC (framing camera) image a large number of craters, formed by collisions into the surface of Vesta, are visible. The craters in this image range in diameter from less than 1 kilometer (0.6 mile) to approximately 4 kilometers (2.5 miles). Whether you are looking at a high-resolution or a low-resolution image, various types of impact craters dominate Vesta’s surface. The relatively large circular depressions in this image are older, heavily degraded impact craters. The craters with sharper rims are fresher craters. Clusters of small secondary craters were created by the impact of material and boulders that were ejected when larger primary craters formed.

This image is located in Vesta’s Oppia quadrangle and the center of the image is 18.6 degrees south latitude, 346.8 degrees east longitude. NASA’s Dawn spacecraft obtained this image with its framing camera on Dec. 13, 2011. This image was taken through the camera’s clear filter. The distance to the surface of Vesta is 190 kilometers (118 miles) and the image has a resolution of about 17.5 meters (57 feet) per pixel. This image was acquired during the LAMO (low-altitude mapping orbit) phase of the mission.
The Dawn mission to Vesta and Ceres is managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Washington D.C. UCLA is responsible for overall Dawn mission science. The Dawn framing cameras have been developed and built under the leadership of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany, with significant contributions by DLR German Aerospace Center, Institute of Planetary Research, Berlin, and in coordination with the Institute of Computer and Communication Network Engineering, Braunschweig. The Framing Camera project is funded by the Max Planck Society, DLR, and NASA/JPL.

Who knew?

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