Free Republic

THE DEPARTMENT of Transportation deals with the movement of things, which is important. The Department of Agriculture deals with food, which is vital. However, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration deals with the origin, nature and meaning, if any, of the universe. Attention should be paid. Space lost its hold on America's imagination after the last lunar expedition in 1972. But the really exciting research had just begun, with the 1965 discovery that the universe is permeated with background radiation which confirmed that a Big Bang had indeed set what are now distant galaxies flying apart. A famous aphorism holds...

According to a new study conducted by an international team of scientists, it may have something to do with a massive impact that occurred in the past. Since Venus appears to have never suffered such an impact, its never developed the dynamo needed to generate a magnetic field. ... According to the most widely-accepted models of planet formation, terrestrial planets are not formed in a single stage, but from a series of accretion events characterized by collisions with planetesimals and planetary embryos – most of which have cores of their own. Recent studies on high-pressure mineral physics and on orbital...

Heavenly bodies stir up routine catastrophes March 18 2003 at 01:30PM By Graeme Addison Legend has it that when two people get together and er... bond, the Earth will move – at least in a metaphorical sense. Likewise, it takes two heavenly bodies, an impactor and a target, to come together with Earth-shattering force to form a crater. There’s nothing dreamlike about this: it happens, frequently, throughout the solar system. Impact catastrophes are routine. Just over two-billion years ago, a chunk of asteroid at least the size of Table Mountain struck the landmass that is now South Africa. It hurtled...

Scientists have long believed that comets and, or a type of very primitive meteorite called carbonaceous chondrites were the sources of early Earth's volatile elements -- which include hydrogen, nitrogen, and carbon -- and possibly organic material, too. Understanding where these volatiles came from is crucial for determining the origins of both water and life on the planet. New research led by Carnegie's Conel Alexander focuses on frozen water that was distributed throughout much of the early Solar System, but probably not in the materials that aggregated to initially form Earth... It has been suggested that both comets and carbonaceous...

Impact cratering is one of the most fundamental geological processes. On many planets, impact craters are the dominant geological landform. On Earth, erosion, plate tectonics, and volcanic resurfacing continually destroy the impact cratering record, but even here, the geological, biological, and environmental effects of impact cratering are apparent. Impact events are destructive and have been linked to at least one of the 'big five' mass extinctions over the past 540 million years. Intriguingly, impact craters can also have beneficial effects. Many impact craters are associated with economic metalliferous ore deposits and hydrocarbon reservoirs. This Special Paper from The Geological...

President Donald Trump is scheduled to sign his administration’s first space policy directive in a White House ceremony Dec. 11, one that will formally direct NASA to send humans back to the moon. A White House schedule of the president’s activities, released late Dec. 10, includes a 3 p.m. Eastern “signing ceremony for Space Policy Directive 1.” The schedule didn’t provide additional details about the event or the document, but a White House official later confirmed that the directive is linked to human space exploration policy. “The president, today, will sign Space Policy Directive 1 (SPD-1) that directs the NASA...

SYRACUSE, N.Y. (WSYR-TV) - It's time for the full moon of November. Tonight is the night to see it. The moon rises at 6:42 this evening in the eastern sky. Full moon tonight is at precisely 1:23 am, but it'll be close enough to full this evening, making for a bright Friday evening. Friday night will likely be our best chance to view the moon, as clouds will block the view Saturday evening. The Native American name for the November full moon is the Full Beaver Moon. Colonists also referred to the moon by this name, as it signified the...

Japan's lunar orbiter discovers 50km cave beneath surface Underground chamber can potentially provide shelter for astronauts KENTARO IWAMOTO, Nikkei staff writer TOKYO -- Data from a lunar orbiter has confirmed a cave beneath the surface of the moon that could be used as an exploration base, providing shelter for astronauts and instruments, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, said Wednesday. The lunar orbiter Kaguya, also known as Selene, discovered the tube-shaped, 50km cave by using its radar sounder system that examines underground structures. The cave was found at an area with a set of volcanic domes known as the...

Space luminaries such as Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have talked about building bases on the Moon to let humans live, work and play on the lunar surface. A new discovery, however, may bring that dream to reality sooner than realized. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has discovered an enormous cave under the lunar surface, something it calls a "very significant" discovery, due to its value for both science and human expansion into space. The discovery was made by Japan’s Selenological and Engineering Explorer (Selene) probe and shows a 50 kilometer (31 miles) "lava tube" underground, alongside a lava...

Japan says lunar chasm measuring 50km long and 100 metres wide could be used as a base for astronauts and their equipment.Scientists have fantasised for centuries about humans colonising the moon. That day may have drawn a little closer after Japan’s space agency said it had discovered an enormous cave beneath the lunar surface that could be turned into an exploration base for astronauts. The discovery, by Japan’s Selenological and Engineering Explorer (Selene) probe, comes as several countries vie to follow the US in sending manned missions to the moon. Using a radar sounder system that can examine underground structures,...

What makes it “harvest”: It’s the full moon closest to the autumnal equinox. The reason the moon has been looking so big this week is that it’s rising around sunset. The bright moon comes up in a twilight sky, and at a time when more people are likely to take notice of it near the horizon.... ... . On average, the moon rises about 50 minutes later each night — so if it rose at, say, 6 p.m. on Tuesday, it would rise at 6:50 on Wednesday. But around the equinox, because of the position of the moon in relation...

Agreement to purchase advanced weapons from US goes counter to his General Assembly speech On Sept. 21, during his visit to New York to attend the UN General Assembly meeting, President Moon Jae-in's actions regarding diplomacy and security went from one extreme to another. Speaking before the General Assembly, he stressed the urgent need to achieve peace on the Korean Peninsula through peaceful, diplomatic and political efforts, but later, in a summit meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump, he agreed to a deal on the purchase of state-of-the-art American weaponry, raising concerns that this might set off an arms race...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump and South Korean President Moon Jae-in agreed to strengthen their defense posture amid rising tensions with North Korea, the White House said on Friday. Trump and Moon, who met on Thursday, committed to strengthen their "combined defense posture, including through South Korea’s acquisition and development of highly advanced military assets" and "agreed to the enhanced deployment of U.S. strategic assets in and around South Korea on a rotational basis," the White House said in a statement....

As the Aug. 21 solar eclipse nears, communities within the path of totality are preparing for masses of people traveling in search of the optimal viewing experience. The expected influx has placed an unprecedented task in front of cities and towns that are unaccustomed to large tourist populations. Places like Hopkinsville, Kentucky, are working to transform their communities to prepare for the event. “This is unlike anything this community has ever seen or will probably ever see again,” Hopkinsville Solar Eclipse Marketing and Events Consultant Brooke Jung said. “We’ve got people coming from 42 different states and 18 different countries.”...

German company Part Time Scientists, which originally competed for the Google Lunar X Prize race to the moon, plans to send a lander with a rover in late 2018 to visit the landing site of Apollo 17. (Launched in 1972, this was NASA's final Apollo mission to the moon.) Instead of using a complex dedicated telecommunication system to relay data from the rover to the Earth, the company will rely on LTE technology — the same system used on Earth for mobile phone communications. "We are cooperating with Vodafone in order to provide LTE base stations on the moon," Karsten...

South Korea President Moon Jae-in has requested a call with President Trump sometime Sunday evening, the White House said. The notice, which came from a brief White House press pool report, did not indicate the purpose of the call. However, Trump tweeted around 9:22 p.m. Eastern to say he just got off the phone and brought up new international sanctions on North Korea....

“Let us do what our nation has always done since its very founding and beyond: We’ve pushed the boundaries on frontiers, not just of territory, but of knowledge. We’ve blazed new trails, and we’ve astonished the world as we’ve boldly grasped our future without fear.” “From this ‘Bridge to Space,’ our nation will return to the moon, and we will put American boots on the face of Mars.” Pence declared. Lined up behind Pence on the podium was the Orion spacecraft flown on Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1) in 2014 flanked by a flown SpaceX cargo Dragon and a mockup of...

Trump calls for firm response to North Korea, targets Seoul on trade By David Brunnstrom and Lisa Lambert WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump called for a determined response to North Korea after talks with South Korea's President Moon Jae-in on Friday where he stressed the importance of their alliance but took aim at Seoul over trade and sharing the cost of defence. Trump said the United States was renegotiating what he characterized as a "rough" trade deal with South Korea agreed to five years ago by his predecessor, Barack Obama, and reiterated that an era of "strategic patience"...

This is the first time the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has said it aims to send an astronaut beyond the International Space Station, an agency spokeswoman told AFP on Friday. The idea is to first join a NASA-led mission in 2025 to build a space station in the moon's orbit, as part of a longer-term effort by NASA to reach Mars. Tokyo hopes that contributing to the multinational mission and sharing Japanese technology will land it a coveted spot at the station, from which it could eventually send an astronaut to the Moon, the spokeswoman said. The plan was...

f and when Lunar or Martian colonies become a reality, will the colonists be able to brew and enjoy their own beer? Or will imported beer be the only thing available to them? That’s the question a team of bioengineering students from the University of California San Diego sought to answer. As finalists who competed in the Lab2Moon competition being held by TeamIndus, they combined their love of beer with their love of space exploration. ... The Lab2Moon competition was held in order to see a youth experiment brought to the Moon aboard that spacecraft. And while their experiment did...