Posted on by Fraser Cain

No Moon Missions, That’s a Relief

Ares V rocket
Ares V rocket

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The rumors were true, Constellation is cancelled. No Ares 1 crew vehicle, no Ares V heavy lifter, no Altair lander. No bases on the Moon, and no human exploration of Mars. NASA is canceling the human return to the Moon.

Good.

Obviously I’m a huge fan of human space exploration. I’ve dedicated my life to it. I’ve raised my children in the certainty that they’re going to be the first humans to set foot on the surface of Mars, and I mourn the end of the Apollo program. Where’s my flying car? But I’ve also felt deeply unsettled about the Constellation program. Maybe it was the best way to reach the Moon 40 years ago, but things are different now.

As some of you know, my background is in software, where the competition is fierce. And half of this is a mental game; you win the information war in the minds of customers through FUD – Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. Make your nervous customers wait, and hope that your next great solution is going to solve all their problems. Although we’re talking space exploration here, I see a parallel. Why work our tails off to go to the Moon or Mars if NASA is going to just make it happen for us?

Well they aren’t, and I’d argue that they never were. It was just a matter of time before the political parties changed, budgets tightened, and priorities shifted. It was inevitable that this would happen, and if it didn’t happen this time around, it would happen with the next shift in government. No long term goal could ever survive. And time spent waiting for NASA to make it happen was wasted time.

As the guy watching stats at Universe Today (2 million readers in January, 2009), I can guarantee that interest in space and astronomy is continuing to rise. The demand and interest is there, and thanks to the Internet, thousands of flowers are blooming as space advocacy groups are coming together to get things done – like the Mars Society, and the Planetary Society. Private companies are making human space tourism a reality, with Virgin Galactic, Space Adventures, and Bigelow Aerospace. There are privately funded prizes available for the completion of technical accomplishments, like the Google Lunar X Prize.

But with NASA handling that “back to the Moon” thing, space advocates probably thought they could relax a little.

I think that NASA has an enormous role to play in human space exploration. They have the ability to solve problems that private enterprise just doesn’t have the funds for. Sure, NASA put a man on the Moon, but it’s the trickle down technologies that we appreciate every day. Like velcro! NASA needs create the tools and technology that will enable a vibrant and healthy private space industry.

What’s the best way to extract fuel from an asteroid? How can ion engines cut down flight times? Is there a better way to make a spacesuit? What are some good materials for space elevators? What are some safer rocket fuels? How can we make rocket launches better for the environment? Is there a way to make velcro better?

They can do this through pure research, competitions, university grants, prizes, and private/government partnerships. They can team up with other governments to cut costs on the really big challenges.

And you know what’s strange? They already do this with science. NASA listens to scientists to hear their greatest challenges. “We need to see through gas and dust to see star formation and protoplanetary disks” – here’s Spitzer. “We need to see high energy regions around supermassive black holes” – that’s Fermi. “We need to know if there’s evidence of water on the surface of Mars” – that’s Spirit and Opportunity. NASA does this so well with science? Why don’t they answer questions and solve problems in the same way for space exploration? There are so many questions, and NASA can help point us in the right directions.

NASA can help me build my flying car, but I still want to choose the destination.

Don’t worry, the Moon is still there, and Mars isn’t going anywhere. And my daughter is still going to be first person to squish the sands of Mars between her toes (thanks to remote toe-sensing technology developed by NASA).

Here’s an article about the 1st man on the Moon.

Posted on by John Carl Villanueva

Sea of Tranquility

Apollo 11 landed on the Moon on July 20, 1969.

The Sea of Tranquility is the landing site of Apollo 11, the mission that gave mankind its first ever walk on the Moon.

Walk? Yes, that’s right. The Sea of Tranquility is not actually a sea, so Neil Armstrong didn’t have to walk on water. In fact, there isn’t a single sea on the lunar surface. The Sea of Tranquility is actually a lunar mare. Now, although the plural of ‘mare’, ‘maria’, is a Latin word that means ‘seas’, these maria don’t have water in them.

Lunar maria were named as such because early astronomers mistook these areas as seas. You see, when you look at the Moon, particularly its near side (well, we don’t actually get to see the far side), i.e., the side which practically constantly stares at us at night, you’ll notice certain features that are darker than others.

Compare the Moon to a grey-scale model of the Earth, and you’ll easily mistake those dark patches for seas. By the way, in case you’ve been reading article titles (not the entire article) on this site lately, you might recall us mentioning water on the Moon. There’s water alright … underneath the surface, so even assuming that they’re plentiful, they don’t qualify as seas.

Let’s go back to our main topic. Called Mare Tranquillitatis in Latin, the Sea of Tranquility is found in the Tranquillitatis basin of the Moon and is composed of basalt. Maria are seen from Earth as relatively dark because the lighter colored areas are much elevated than them and hence are better illuminated by light coming from the Sun.

Whenever color is processed and extracted from multiple photographs, the Sea of Tranquility gives off a slightly bluish shade. This is believed to be caused by the relatively higher metal content in the area.

The actual landing site of Apollo 11’s lunar module is now named Statio Tranquillitatis or Tranquility Base. To the north of that specific area you’ll find three small craters aptly named Aldrin, Collins, and Armstrong, the privileged crew of Apollo 11.

The lunar module of Apollo 11 was not the only spacecraft to have landed on the Sea of Tranquility. There was also the Ranger 8 spacecraft … although “crash landed” is a more appropriate term. It wasn’t a failed mission though, since it was really meant to impact the lunar surface after taking pictures throughout its flight before striking the Moon.

Some people actually think the Apollo missions, particularly the lunar landings, were part of an elaborate hoax. Click on this link to read what the Japanese SELENE Lunar Mission discovered.

NASA has a huge collection of reliable links related to the Apollo missions.

Episodes about the moon from Astronomy Cast. Lend us your ears!

Shooting Lasers at the Moon and Losing Contact with Rovers
The Moon Part I

Posted on by Jon Voisey

Measuring the Moon’s Eccentricity at Home

View of the moon at perigee and apogee

Caption: View of the moon at perigee and apogee

As a teacher, I’m always on the lookout for labs with simple setups appropriate for students. My current favorite is finding the speed of light with chocolate.

In a new paper recently uploaded to arXiv, Kevin Krisciunas from Texas A&M describes a method for determining the orbital eccentricity of the moon with a surprisingly low error using nothing more than a meter stick, a piece of cardboard and a program meant for fitting curves to variable stars.

This method makes use of the fact that the eccentricity can be determined from the ratio of the mean angular size of an object and one half of its amplitude. Thus, the main objective is to measure these two quantities.

Kevin’s strategy for doing this is to make use of a cardboard sighting hole which can slide along a meter stick. By peering through the hole at the moon, and sliding the card back and forth until the angular size of the hole just overlaps the moon. From there, the diameter of the hole divided by the distance down the meter stick gives the angular size thanks to the small angle formula (? = d/D in radians if D >> d).

To prevent systematic errors in misjudging as the card is slid forward until the size of the hole matches the moon, it is best to also approach it from the other direction; Coming from in from the far end of the meter stick. This should help reduce errors and in Kevin’s attempt, he found that he had a typical spread of ± 4 mm when doing so.

At this point, there is still another systematic error that must be taken into account: The pupil has a finite size comparable to the sighting hole. This will cause the actual angular size to be underestimated. As such, a correction factor is necessary.

To derive this correction factor, Kevin placed a 91 mm disk at a distance of 10 meters (this should produce a disk with the same angular size as the moon when viewed from that distance). To produce the best match, the slip of cardboard with the sighting hole should need to be placed at 681.3 mm on the meter stick, but due to the systematic error of the pupil, Kevin found it needed to be placed at 821 mm. The ratio of the observed placement to the proper placement provided the correction factor Kevin used (1.205). This would need to be calibrated for each individual person and would also depend on the amount of light during the time of observation since this also affects the diameter of the pupil. However, adopting a single correction factor produces satisfactory results.

This allows for properly taken data which can then be used to determine the necessary quantities (the mean angular size and 1/2 the amplitude). To determine these, Kevin used a program known as PERDET which is designed for fitting sinusoid curves to oscillations in variable stars. Any program that could fit such curves to data points using a ?2 fit or a Fourier analysis would be suitable to this end.

From such programs once the mean angular size and half amplitude are determined, their ratio provides the eccentricity. For Kevin’s experiment, he found a value of 0.039 ± 0.006. Additionally, the period he determined from perigee to perigee was 27.24 ± 0.29 days which is in excellent agreement with the accepted value of 27.55 days.

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Where To Next for NASA’s Solar System Exploration?

From top to bottom, pictured are the moon, Venus, and an asteroid.From top to bottom, pictured (not to scale) are the moon, Venus, and an asteroid. These three celestial bodies from our solar system are possible candidates for NASA's next space venture.

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Where is NASA going next to probe our solar system? The space agency announced today they have selected three proposals as candidates for the agency’s next space venture to another celestial body in our solar system. The proposed missions would probe the atmosphere composition and crust of Venus; return a piece of a near-Earth asteroid for analysis; or drop a robotic lander into a basin at the moon’s south pole to return lunar rocks back to Earth for study. All three sound exciting!

Here are the finalists:

Surface and Atmosphere Geochemical Explorer, or SAGE, mission to Venus would release a probe to descend through the planet’s atmosphere. During descent, instruments would conduct extensive measurements of the atmosphere’s composition and obtain meteorological data. The probe then would land on the surface of Venus, where its abrading tool would expose both a weathered and a pristine surface area to measure its composition and mineralogy. Scientists hope to understand the origin of Venus and why it is so different from Earth. Larry Esposito of the University of Colorado in Boulder, is the principal investigator.

Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security Regolith Explorer spacecraft, called Osiris-Rex, would rendezvous and orbit a primitive asteroid. After extensive measurements, instruments would collect more than two ounces of material from the asteriod’s surface for return to Earth. The returned samples would help scientists better undertand and answer long-held questions about the formation of our solar system and the origin of complex molecules necessary for life. Michael Drake, of the University of Arizona in Tucson, is the principal investigator.

MoonRise: Lunar South Pole-Aitken Basin Sample Return Mission would place a lander in a broad basin near the moon’s south pole and return approximately two pounds of lunar materials for study. This region of the lunar surface is believed to harbor rocks excavated from the moon’s mantle. The samples would provide new insight into the early history of the Earth-moon system. Bradley Jolliff, of Washington University in St. Louis, is the principal investigator.

The final project will be selected in mid-2011, and for now, the three finalists will receive approximately $3.3 million in 2010 to conduct a 12-month mission concept study that focuses on implementation feasibility, cost, management and technical plans. Studies also will include plans for educational outreach and small business opportunities.

The selected mission must be ready for launch no later than Dec. 30, 2018. Mission cost, excluding the launch vehicle, is limited to $650 million.

“These are projects that inspire and excite young scientists, engineers and the public,” said Ed Weiler, associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “These three proposals provide the best science value among eight submitted to NASA this year.”

The final selection will become the third mission in the program. New Horizons, launched in 2006, will fly by the Pluto-Charon system in 2015 then target another Kuiper Belt object for study. The second mission, called Juno, is designed to orbit Jupiter from pole to pole for the first time, conducting an in-depth study of the giant planet’s atmosphere and interior. It is slated for launch in August 2011.

Visit the New Frontiers program site for more information.

Posted on by Fraser Cain

Moon Rotation

Moon Rotation

The rotation of the Moon is a strange situation. It takes the same amount of time for the Moon to complete a full orbit around the Earth as it takes for it to complete one rotation on its axis. In other words, the Moon rotation time is 27.3 days, just the same as its orbital time: 27.3 days.

What this means to us here on Earth is that the Moon always presents the same face to the Earth. We only see one side of the Moon, and not the other. And if you could stand on the surface of the Moon, the Earth would appear to just hang in the sky, not moving anywhere.

Astronomers say that the Moon is tidally locked to the Earth. At some point in the past, it did have a different rotation rate from its orbital period. But slight differences in the shape of the Moon caused the Moon to experience different amounts of gravity depending on its position. These differences acted as a brake, slowing the Moon rotation speed down until it matched its orbital period. There are other tidally locked moons in the Solar System. Pluto and its moon Charon are tidally locked to each other, so they always present the same face to one another.

We’ve written many articles about rotation for Universe Today. Here’s an article about the rotation of the Earth, and here’s an article about the rotation of Saturn.

If you’d like more info on the Moon, check out NASA’s Solar System Exploration Guide on the Moon, and here’s a link to NASA’s Lunar and Planetary Science page.

We’ve also recorded an episode of Astronomy Cast all about the Moon. Listen here, Episode 113: The Moon, Part 1.

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Signs of Life Detected on the Moon?

Image from the Moon Impact Probe of the lunar surface. Credit: ISRO

A website based in India has reported researchers with the Chandrayaan-1 mission may have found “signs of life in some form or the other on the Moon.” DNAIndia.com quoted Surendra Pal, associate director of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) Satellite Centre as saying that Chandrayaan-1 picked up signatures of organic matter on parts of the Moon’s surface. “The findings are being analyzed and scrutinized for validation by ISRO scientists and peer reviewers,” Pal said.

Sources in India say Chandrayaan project director M. Annadurai later commented that the story was broken very prematurely. However, he did not dismiss the idea.

At a press conference Tuesday at the American Geophysical Union fall conference, scientists from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter also hinted at possible organics locked away in the lunar regolith. When asked directly about the Chandrayaan-1 claim of finding life on the Moon, NASA’s chief lunar scientist, Mike Wargo, certainly did not dismiss the idea either but said, “It is an intriguing suggestion, and we are certainly very interested in learning more of their results.”

Chandrayaan-1’s Moon Impact Probe, or MIP impacted the within the Shackleton Crater on the Moon’s south pole on Nov. 14, 2008. An anonymous Chandrayaan-1 scientist said MIP’s mass spectrometer detected chemical signatures of organic matter in the soil kicked up by the impact.

“Certain atomic numbers were observed that indicated the presence of carbon components. This indicates the possibility of the presence of organic matter (on the Moon),” a senior scientist told DNAIndia.

The scientist added the source of the organics could be comets or meteorites which have deposited the matter on the Moon’s surface but the recent discovery by another impact probe — the LCROSS mission — of ice in the polar regions of the Moon also “lend credence to the possibility of organic matter there.”

Undoubtedly, getting from carbon compounds directly to organics is a bit of a stretch, but amino acids have been detected in comets and were also found in pieces of the asteroid 2008 TC3 that landed in Africa over a year ago. Over the millennia, the Moon has been bombarded by comet and asteroid hits.

We’ll keep you posted on any official announcements by ISRO.

Sources: BAUT Forum, DNA India, AGU press conference

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

LRO Finds Some Surprises on the Moon

Bruno Crater. Taken by: LROC Narrow Camera. Image Credit: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University

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The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) is getting the closest look yet at the Moon from orbit, providing crucial insights to help prepare for a possible return of humans to the lunar surface. “There is a lot of natural beauty on the Moon,” said Mike Wargo, NASA’s chief lunar scientist, speaking at the American Geophysical Union meeting on Tuesday. “LRO is collecting data to support a return to the Moon, studying a diverse and representative set of sites selected on scientific, engineering, and resource potential and representative of the wide range of terrains present on the Moon.”

Scientists explained how various instruments on LRO are returning surprising data while helping scientists map the moon in incredible detail and understand the lunar environment.

LROC, or the LRO Camera, has now mapped in high resolution all the Apollo landing sites and 50 sites that were identified by NASA’s Constellation Program to be representative of the wide range of terrains present on the moon.

Some of the most intriguing images revisit the sites of humankind’s first forays beyond Earth orbit.

Enlargement of area surrounding Apollo 11 landing site. Credit: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University
Enlargement of area surrounding Apollo 11 landing site. Credit: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University

“Imaging the Apollo landing sites have served a practical purpose,” said Mark Robinson, LROC principal investigator, “as we are using them in lieu of stars to calibrate the LROC Narrow Angle Cameras. Plus these images are much more fun than stars, because we get to see where humans used to walk. It’s also much less stress on the spacecraft because you don’t have to slew in and out to look at the stars.”

Since the locations of the Apollo spacecraft and other hardware left by the astronauts are known to about nine feet absolute accuracy, Robinson said they can tie the Narrow Angle Camera geometric and timing calibration to the coordinates of the Apollo Laser Ranging Retroreflectors and Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Packages. “This ground truth enables more accurate coordinates to be derived for virtually anywhere on the moon. Scientists are currently analyzing brightness differences of the surface material stirred up by the Apollo astronauts, comparing them with the local surroundings to estimate physical properties of the surface material. Such analyses will provide critical information for interpreting remote sensing data from LRO, as well as from India’s Chandrayaan-1, and Japan’s Kaguya missions.”

Robinson said the soil compacted by the Apollo astronauts and lunar rovers is darker than undisturbed soil. “Disturbing the soil changes the brightness by a factor of two,” he said.

LRO’s Diviner instrument has discovered that the bottoms of polar craters in permanent shadow can be brutally cold. Mid-winter nighttime surface temperatures inside the coldest craters in the north polar region dip down to 26 Kelvin (416 below zero Fahrenheit, or minus 249 degrees Celsius). “These are the coldest temperatures that have been measured thus far anywhere in the solar system. You may have to travel to Kuiper Belt to find temperatures this low” said David Paige, principal investigator for the Diviner Lunar Radiometer Experiment. “The temperatures we are observing both day and night are way cold enough to preserve water ice for extended periods, as well as a wide range of compounds such as carbon dioxide and organic molecules. There could be all kinds of interesting compounds trapped there.”

Paige also noted that it turns out the moon does have seasons. “The Moon has a tilt of 1.54 degrees, so at most latitudes the lunar seasons are hardly noticeable,” he said, “but at Polar Regions, there are significant variation in shadows and temperatures because of this tilt.”

The Cosmic Ray Telescope for the Effects of Radiation, or CRaTER, is measuring the amount of space radiation at the Moon to help determine the level of protection required for astronauts during lengthy expeditions on the moon or to other solar system destinations.

“This surprising solar minimum, or quiet period for the sun regarding magnetic activity, has led to the highest level of space radiation in the form of Galactic Cosmic Rays, or GCRs, fluxes and dose rates during the era of human space exploration,” said Harlan Spence, principal investigator the CRaTER instrument. “The rarest events – cosmic rays with enough energy to punch through the whole telescope – are seen once per second, nearly twice higher than anticipated. Crater radiation measurements taken during this unique, worst-case solar minimum will help us design safe shelters for astronauts.”

GCRs are electrically charged particles – electrons and atomic nuclei – moving at nearly the speed of light into the solar system. Magnetic fields carried by the solar wind deflect many GCRs before they approach the inner solar system. However, the sun is in an unusually long and deep quiet period, and the interplanetary magnetic fields and solar wind pressures are the lowest yet measured, allowing an unprecedented influx of GCRs.

Scientists expected the level of GCRs to drop as LRO got closer to the moon for its mapping orbit. This is because GCRs come from all directions in deep space, but the moon acts as a shield, blocking the particles behind it across about half the sky in close lunar proximity.

“But surprisingly, as we went closer to surface, amount of radiation decrease did not happen as quickly as predicted,” said Spence. “The difference is that the Moon is a source of secondary radiation. This is likely due to interactions between the Galactic Cosmic Rays and the lunar surface. The primary GCRs produce secondary radiation by shattering atoms in the lunar surface material; the lunar surface then becomes a significant secondary source of particles, and the resulting radiation dose is thereby 30-40 percent higher than expected.”

But Spence said the amount of radiation shouldn’t be a showstopper, as far as future human missions to the Moon. The amount of radiation, even at its highest, is comparable to US yearly exposure limits for people with occupational exposure such as x-ray technicians or uranium miners.

The team also wants to see what the radiation environment on the Moon is like during an active solar cycle – but they might have to wait awhile.

“We’re eager to see a big solar flare, so we can evaluate the hazards from solar-generated cosmic rays, but we’ll probably have to wait a couple years until the sun wakes up,” said Spence.

Wargo said the LRO findings emphasizes the importance of engaging the scientific community for exploration. “The work being done in heliophysics areas is important to keeping astronauts safe,” he said, “as well as being able to model the activity of the sun and the generations of energetic solar particles. One of the ‘holy grails’ would be to be able predict the the Sun’s activities and be able to give an ‘all clear’ of how many days when astronauts could be on an EVA and what the likelihood of solar energetic particles being emitted from the sun. The work we are doing to enable exploration is helping our scientific understanding.”

LRO is expected to return more data about the moon than all previous orbital missions combined.

Source: AGU Press conference, press release

Posted on by Jon Voisey

Reexamining a Cataclysm

Image of Earth's Moon centered on the Orientale Basin taken by Galileo Spacecraft.

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One of the legacies of the Apollo program is the rare lunar samples it returned. These samples (along with meteorites that originated from the moon and even one from Mars) can be radiometrically dated, and together they paint a picture a cataclysmic time in the history of our solar system. Over a period of time some 3.8 to 4.1 billion years ago, the moon underwent a fierce period of impacts that was the origin of most of the craters we see today. Paired with the “Nice model” (named after the French university where it was developed, not because it was pleasant in any way), which describes the migration of planets to their current orbits, it is widely held that the migration of Jupiter or one of the other gas giants migrations during this period, caused a shower of asteroids or comets to rain down upon the inner solar system in a time known as the “Late Heavy Bombardment” (LHB).

A new paper by astronomers from Harvard and the University of British Columbia disagrees with this picture. In 2005, Strom et al. published a paper in Science which analyzed the frequency of craters of various sizes on the lunar highlands, Mars, and Mercury (since these are the only rocky bodies in the inner solar system without sufficient erosion to wash away their cratering history). When comparing relatively young surfaces which had been more recently resurfaced to older ones from the Late Heavy Bombardment area, is that there were two separate, but characteristic curves. The one for the LHB era revealed a crater frequency peaking at craters near 100 km (62 miles) in diameter and dropping off rapidly to lower diameters. Meanwhile, the younger surfaces showed a nearly even amount of craters of all sizes measurable. Additionally, the LHB impacts were an order of magnitude more common than the newer ones.

The Strom et al. took this as evidence that two different populations of impactors were at work. The LHB era, they called Population I. The more recent, they called Population II. What they noticed was the current size distribution of main belt asteroids (MBAs) was “virtually identical to the Population 1 projectile size distribution”. Additionally, since the size distribution of the MBA is the same today, this indicated that the process which sent these bodies our way didn’t discriminate based on size, which would weed out that size and alter the distribution we observed today. This ruled out processes such as the Yarkovsky effect but agreed with the gravitational shove as a large body would move through the region. The inverse of this (that a process was selecting rocks to chuck our way based on size) would be indicative of Strom’s Population II objects.

However, in this paper recently uploaded to arXiv, Cuk et al. argue that the dates of many of the regions investigated by Strom et al. cannot be reliably dated and therefore, cannot be used to investigate the nature of the LHB. They suggest that only the Imbrium and Orientale basins, which have their formation dates precisely known from rocks retrieved by Apollo missions, can be used to accurately describe the cratering history during this period.

With this assumption, Cuk’s group reexamined the frequency of crater sizes for just these basins. When this was plotted for these two groups, they found that the power law they used to fit the data had “an index of -1.9 or -2 rather than -1.2 or -1.3 (like the modern asteroid belt)”. As such, they claim, “theoretical models producing the lunar cataclysm by gravitational ejection of main-belt asteroids are seriously challenged.”

Although they call into question Strom et al.’s model, they cannot propose a new one. They suggest some causes that are unlikely, such as comets (which have too low of impact probabilities). One solution they mention is that the population of the asteroid belt has evolved since the LHB which would account for the differences. Regardless, they conclude that this question is more open ended than previously expected and that more work will need to be done to understand this cataclysm.

Posted on by Darnell Clayton

Mini Nuclear Reactors Could Power Space Colonies

Growing up on Star Trek, I was always told that space was the final frontier. What they never told me was that space is about as friendly to the human body as being microwaved alive in a frozen tundra–in essence, shelter is a necessity.

Like any Earthen home or building, an off world shelter on the Moon or Mars will need energy to keep its residents comfortable (not to mention alive), and power outages of any sort will not be tolerated–unless a person desires to be radiated and frozen (which is probably not a great way to “kick the bucket”).

While some may look towards solar power to help keep the lights on and the heat flowing, it may be wiser instead to look at an upcoming “fission battery” from Hyperion Power Generation to power future colonies on the Moon, Mars, and perhaps an plasma rocket powered starship as well.

Originally created by Dr. Otis Peterson while on staff at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, Hyperion Power Generation (which I’ll call HPG for short) has licensed Dr. Peterson’s miniature nuclear reactor which are actually small enough to fit inside a decent sized hot tub.

Despite their small stature (being 1.5 meters by 2.5 meters), one of these mini-reactors could provide enough energy to power 20,000 average sized American homes (or 70 MW’s of thermal energy in geek speak) and can last up to ten years.

Since HPG is designing these mini-nuclear reactors to require little human assistance (the “little” having to do with burying the reactors underground), these “nuclear batteries” would enable NASA (or a wealthy space company) to power an outpost on the Moon or Mars without having to rely upon the Sun’s rays–at least as a primary source for power.

HPG’s mini-reactors could also help power future star ships heading towards Jupiter or Saturn (or even beyond), providing enough energy to not only keep the humans on board alive and comfortable, but provide enough thrust via plasma rockets as well.

Scheduled to be released in 2013, these mini-reactors are priced at around $50 million each, which probably puts it outside the price range of the average private space corporation.

Despite the cost, it may be wise for NASA, the European Space Agency, Japan, India and (if the US is in a really good trusting mood) China to consider installing one (or several) of these mini-reactors for their respective bases, as it could enable humanity to actually do what has been depicted in scifi films and television shows–seek out new homes on new worlds and spread ourselves throughout the universe.

Source: Hyperion Power Generation, Inc., Image Credit: NASA

Posted on by Fraser Cain

Blood Moon



A blood moon is the first full moon after a harvest moon, which is the full moon closest to the fall equinox. Another name for a blood moon is a hunter’s moon.

Before the advent of electricity, farmers used the light of the full moons to get work done. The harvest moon was a time they could dedicate to bringing in their fall harvest. And so a month later is the blood moon, or the hunter’s moon. This was a good time for hunters to shoot migrating birds in Europe, or track prey at night to stockpile food for Winter.

A full moon occurs every 29.5 days, so a blood moon occurs about a month after the harvest moon. A blood moon is just a regular full moon. It doesn’t appear any brighter or redder than any other full moon. The distance between the Earth and the Moon can change over the course of the month. When the moon is at its closest, a full moon can appear 10% larger and 30% brighter than when it’s further away from the Earth.

A blood moon will actually turn red when it matches up with a lunar eclipse. These occur about twice a year, so blood moons match up with lunar eclipses about every 6 years or so. At the time of this writing, the next blood moon lunar eclipse will be in 2015.

We’ve written many articles about the Moon for Universe Today. Here’s an article about the discovery of water on the Moon, and here’s an article about a lava tube on the Moon.

If you’d like more info on the Moon, check out NASA’s Solar System Exploration Guide on the Moon, and here’s a link to NASA’s Lunar and Planetary Science page.

We’ve also done several episodes of Astronomy Cast about the Moon. Here’s a good one, Episode 17: Where Does the Moon Come From?