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Automated Technology Allows Unparalleled Space Exploration from Moon, to Asteroids, and Beyond

Human exploration of the lunar surface

When landing Apollo 11 in 1969, astronauts looked out the window for distinguishing features that they recognized from maps of the Moon and were able to steer the lander to avoid a disastrous touchdown on top of a rocky area.

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Earth And The Moon Once Shared A Magnetic Shield

Earth and the Moon

Four-and-a-half billion years ago, Earth's surface was a menacing, hot mess. Long before the emergence of life, temperatures were scorching, and the air was toxic.

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Moon's Magnetic Crust Research Sees Scientists Debunk Long-held Theory

New international research into the Moon provides scientists with insights as to how and why its crust is magnetised, essentially 'debunking' one of the previous longstanding theories.

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MSolo Prepared For Flight To The Moon

Engineers and technicians at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida install the radiator for the Mass Spectrometer Observing Lunar Operations (MSolo) instrument inside the Space Station Processing Facility on Sept. 25, 2020.

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Planet Collision Simulations Give Clues To Atmospheric Loss From Moon's Origin

Earth could have lost anywhere between ten and 60 per cent of its atmosphere in the collision that is thought to have formed the Moon.

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How Intense And Dangerous Is Cosmic Radiation On The Moon?

The Chang'e-4 lunar lander touched down on the far side of the Moon on 3 January 2019, with a German instrument for measuring space radiation on board.

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New Evidence That Two Planets Collided To Form The Moon

"There's a huge difference between the modern elemental makeup of the Earth and Moon and we wanted to know why," said NASA planetary scientist Justin Simon. "Now, we know that the Moon was very different from the start, and it's probably because of the 'Giant Impact' theory."

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The Moon Is Rusting, and Researchers Want to Know Why

Mars has long been known for its rust. Iron on its surface, combined with water and oxygen from the ancient past, give the Red Planet its hue. But scientists were recently surprised to find evidence that our airless Moon has rust on it as well.

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A Dustbuster For The Moon

A team led by the University of Colorado Boulder is pioneering a new solution to the problem of spring cleaning on the moon: Why not zap away the grime using a beam of electrons?

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Laser Beams Reflected Between Earth and Moon Boost Science

Dozens of times over the last decade NASA scientists have launched laser beams at a reflector the size of a paperback novel about 240,000 miles (385,000 kilometers) away from Earth.

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Study Reveals Composition Of Gel-like Substance Discovered By Chang'e-4 On The Moon's Far Side

The unusual dark greenish and glistening "gel-like" substance in a crater on the far side of the moon has attracted widespread interest following its discovery by the Chang'e-4 rover in July 2019.

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Asteroid Shower On The Earth-Moon System 800 Million Years Ago Revealed By Lunar Craters

A research team led by Osaka University investigated the formation ages of 59 lunar craters with a diameter of approximately 20 km using the Terrain Camera (TC) onboard the lunar orbiter spacecraft Kaguya.

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A Slightly Younger Moon

The Moon formed a little later than previously assumed.

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Radar Points To The Moon Being More Metallic Than Researchers Thought

What started out as a hunt for ice lurking in polar lunar craters turned into an unexpected finding that could help clear some muddy history about the Moon's formation.

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NASA Book Catalogs Four Decades of Human Lunar Lander Concepts

A NASA-published volume traces the history of human lunar lander concepts developed since Apollo's Lunar Module (LM).

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First Global Map of Rockfalls on the Moon

In October 2015, a spectacular rockfall occurred in the Swiss Alps: in the late morning hours, a large, snow-covered block with a volume of more than 1500 cubic meters suddenly detached from the summit of Mel de la Niva.