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Explanation: Tonight's Full Moon, the second Full Moon in July, could be called a blue moon according to modern folklore. But this sharp and detailed mosaic, recorded with telescope and digital camera just before July's first Full Moon, actually does show a colorful lunar surface. The colors have been enhanced in the processed image but are real nonetheless, corresponding to real differences in the chemical makeup of the lunar surface. Also easy to see especially when the Moon is near full phase, bright rays from 85 kilometer wide Tycho crater at the upper right extend far across the lunar surface....

Has anyone noticed that the moon is brighter than normal tonight ? Saw a bright object flying in the sky brighter than airplane in eastern USA.

[Now this would be really cool! Hope it pans out!] 'Impossible' rocket drive works and could get to Moon in four hoursThe British designed EM Drive actually works and would dramatically speed up space travel, scientists have confirmedBy Sarah Knapton, Science Editor 6:04PM BST 28 Jul 2015 Interplanetary travel could be a step closer after scientists confirmed that an electromagnetic propulsion drive, which is fast enough to get to the Moon in four hours, actually works. The EM Drive was developed by the British inventor Roger Shawyer nearly 15 years ago but was ridiculed at the time as being scientifically...

The moon was full on July 2, and it’ll be full again on July 31. The second of two full moons in a calendar month is often called a Blue Moon. _________________________ The next Blue Moon is July 31, 2015. In recent decades, many people have begun using the name Blue Moon to describe the second full moon of a calendar month. There was a full moon on July 2, 2015. There’s another full moon on July 31. So the July 31 full moon will be called a Blue Moon, according to this definition. The time between one full moon...

Traveling to the Moon just got a whole lot cheaper. A NASA-funded study (PDF) has found that the cost of lunar missions could be reduced by a factor of 10 using a number of techniques – and it could also have implications for getting humans to Mars. The extensive NexGen Space study by the National Space Society (NSS) and the Space Frontier Foundation (SFF) said that partnerships with private companies could return humans to the Moon for $10 billion (£6.4 billion), rather than the previosuly estimated $100 billion (£64 billion) that had turned off potential suitors. Utilizing fuel sourced from...

Aleksandra's Note: Many thanks to Tom Djurdjevich for this essay and reminder about the Serbs who were directly involved with the American Apollo Space Program. This makes me very proud to be an American Serb and I'm honored to call one of these gentlemen, NASA Project Coordinator David Vuich, a friend. David Vuich is one of our esteemed Serbian patriots here in America who was also very active in the "Mihailovich Monument in Washington, D.C. project" that was initiated in the mid 1970's. So glad that David Vuich is still going strong today. The Serbian Diaspora is very fortunate to...

[OK, I dont like government running these programs, but how about this idea?] Four Facts for Human Achievement Day By Edward Hudgins July 20 is the anniversary of one of humanity’s greatest accomplishments, the first lunar landing. We should not only give a shout out to the thousands of people who made it possible for Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to walk the surface of another world. We should each celebrate this date as Human Achievement Day, to acknowledge all achievements, especially our own. Here are four facts on which you should reflect. Fact one: Achievements are what human life...

In auto racing parlance, NASA engineers put the "pedal to the metal" during a July 17 test of its Space Launch System (SLS) RS-25 rocket engine at Stennis Space Center. During a 535-second test, operators ran the RS-25 through a series of power levels, including a period of firing at 109 percent of the engine's rated power. Data collected on performance of the engine at the various power levels will aid in adapting the former space shuttle engines to the new SLS vehicle mission requirements, including development of an all-new engine controller and software. Four RS-25 engines will use the...

A Monday piece in IO9 contained some revelations about the upcoming sequel to 1996’s “Independence Day,” which is entitled “Independence Day: Resurgence.” 20 years after the great alien invasion flattened many of Earth’s largest cities and killed untold millions of people, the world is still united in building up its defenses against a return engagement. These defenses apparently include a moon base.

Explanation: On June 30, Venus and Jupiter were close in western skies at dusk. Near the culmination of this year's gorgeous conjunction, the two bright evening planets are captured in the same telescopic field of view in this image taken after sunset from Bejing, China. As the two bright planets set together in the west, a nearly Full Moon rose above the horizon to the south and east. Imaged that night with the same telescope and camera, the rising Moon from the opposite part of the sky is compared with the planetary conjunction for scale in the digitally composited image....

Russia's investigative committee spokesman has demanded that an international investigation be launched into the US 1969 moon landings, after a US-led investigation into the world governing body Fifa, cast doubt over the fairness of choosing Russia to host the next World Cup. Nine Fifa officials were implicated in a US and Swiss investigation into the alleged corruption, with the scandal eventually leading to the organisation's president Sepp Blatter to announce his resignation. Russia and Qatar have both denied that their hosting rights are linked to any wrongdoing, however about a fortnight ago the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) confirmed...

Is something really big about to happen? For months, people have been pointing to the second half of this year for various reasons. For some, the major concern is Jade Helm and the unprecedented movement of military vehicles and equipment that we have been witnessing all over the nation. For others, the upcoming fourth blood moon and the end of the Shemitah cycle are extremely significant events. Yet others are most concerned about political developments in Washington D.C. and at the United Nations. To me, it does seem rather remarkable that we are seeing such a confluence of economic, political...

Explanation: What are those colorful rings around the Moon? A corona. Rings like this will sometimes appear when the Moon is seen through thin clouds. The effect is created by the quantum mechanical diffraction of light around individual, similarly-sized water droplets in an intervening but mostly-transparent cloud. Since light of different colors has different wavelengths, each color diffracts differently. Lunar Coronae are one of the few quantum mechanical color effects that can be easily seen with the unaided eye. The featured lunar corona was captured around a Strawberry Moon on June 2 from La Plata, Argentina. Similar coronae that form...

Agencia Espacial Mexicana (AEM) and Astrobotic Technology Inc. are pleased to announce a joint effort to facilitate the development and delivery of the first payload from Latin America to the Moon. Astrobotic and AEM have entered into an agreement outlining a commitment by both organizations to enable a Mexican payload to the Moon. Through this partnership, AEM will take its first step to another planetary body. "Opening access to the Moon is precisely at the core of Astrobotic's mission," said John Thornton, CEO of Astrobotic. "AEM's rising space science and exploration community is yet one more example of the immense...

The surface of the Moon is covered with a fine powdery material that scientists refer to it as “lunar regolith”. Nearly the entire lunar surface is covered with regolith, and bedrock is only visible on the walls of very steep craters. The Moon regolith was formed over billions of years by constant meteorite impacts on the surface of the Moon. Scientists estimate that the lunar regolith extends down 4-5 meters in some places, and even as deep as 15 meters in the older highland areas. ... However, landings performed by robotic Surveyor spacecraft showed that the lunar soil was firm...

Explanation: Many bright nebulae and star clusters in planet Earth's sky are associated with the name of astronomer Charles Messier, from his famous 18th century catalog. His name is also given to these two large and remarkable craters on the Moon. Standouts in the dark, smooth lunar Sea of Fertility or Mare Fecunditatis, Messier (left) and Messier A have dimensions of 15 by 8 and 16 by 11 kilometers respectively. Their elongated shapes are explained by an extremely shallow-angle trajectory followed by the impactor, moving left to right, that gouged out the craters. The shallow impact also resulted in two...

* Nasa is thought to have successfully tested a revolutionary power source * Claimed it could fly for eons at the equivalent of 450 million miles an hour * It is powered by a device similar to that found in a microwave oven * Invented by now retired British scientist Roger Shawyer a decade agoAnyone who has ever watched an episode of Star Trek or a Star Wars film will know how it works. The good guys are minding their business in outer space when suddenly the Klingons or the Dark Empire bear down on them out of nowhere. There...

More secular confusion about the moon’s former magnetic field by D. Russell Humphreys A recent paper by Clèment Suavet et al.1 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that uniformitarian scientists, who assume the world is billions of years old, are still very puzzled about the moon’s magnetic field. They don’t understand why it was formerly strong but now doesn’t exist, and how it could exist in the first place.2 The moon’s magnetic data fit creation science theories very well. Suavet and his colleagues have carefully analyzed the magnetism of two basalt samples brought from the moon...

The last known surviving member of the German engineering team that designed the rocket that took US astronauts to the Moon has died in Alabama. Oscar Holderer, who was 95, suffered a stroke last week and did not recover, his son Michael said. Mr Holderer was one of about 120 engineers who moved to the US after World War Two, bringing technology used in the German V2 rocket. They played a key role in the Saturn V rocket used in the 1969 Moon landing. The team, led by Wernher von Braun, was part of a project called Operation Paperclip that...

Is Russia Planning to Disassemble the International Space Station? Goodbye, International Space Station. We hardly knew ye. For nearly two decades, since the launch of its first "module" in 1998, the International Space Station has been a symbol of global cooperation, and the site of actual cooperation among scientists from many nations. Comprised of 15 separate modules, and inhabited continuously since 2000, the International Space Station has hosted upward of 200 astronauts and cosmonauts from 15 different nations over 17 years in service. But in just a few more years, all this will come to an end. Like disassembling an...