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| Ultimi arrivi - SMART-1: the Moon from ESA |
11-Rima Hadley.jpgRima Hadley100 visiteCaption ESA originale:"Hadley Rille is the sinuous depression running across this image.
Beneath it are the 1 to 2 Km high Apennine mountains.
The large crater in the center of the image is the 30 Km diameter "Hadley C".
Location: The feature is centred at: 25,0° N and 3,0° E
Naming: In honour of the English scientist John Hadley who built telescopes in the eighteenth century".Lug 26, 2005
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10-Glusko Crater.jpgGlushko Crater99 visiteThis image, taken by the Advanced Moon Micro-Imager Experiment (AMIE) on board ESA’s SMART-1 spacecraft, shows Glushko impact crater on the Moon. AMIE obtained this image from a distance of about 1600 Km, with a resolution of 150 mt per pixel. The field of view of this image is 80 Km.
The crater is located at 8,4° North and 77,6° West and has a diameter of 43 Km. The crater is attached to the western rim of Olbers crater was previously designated 'Olbers A' before being renamed in honour of Valentin Petrovitch Glushko, a Russian rocket scientist, by the IAU. It is very close to the western limb as seen from Earth.
This crater possesses a relatively high albedo and is the focus of a prominent ray system that extends in all directions across the nearby surface. Very clear impact features indicate that it is very young, unusual for this size of crater (compared to the 800-million year old Copernicus crater). It is possible to see a sharp impact wall and rim, unaffected by erosion (by later impacts). In the inner part of the rim, terraces and wrinkles correspond to collapsed material.
Signatures of ejecta include a blanket surrounding the crater, but also fine radial rays. For this size of crater, the ejecta layer does not seem thick enough to swamp nearby features. In the centre of the crater, there is a rough surface, in morphological terms somewhere in between the smooth ‘bowl’ shape seen in smaller craters, and the defined central peaks in craters larger than 60 kilometres.
Lug 26, 2005
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09-D-CIXS_calcium-detection2.jpgWhat the Moon is made of...According to SMART-1137 visiteUna premessa necessaria: il giorno 15.01.2005 una possente eruzione solare (solar flare) ha investito la Luna. Le particelle provenienti dal Sole, abbattendosi sul nostro Satellite, hanno interagito con la sua superficie ed i suoi elementi.
L'output globale di questa interazione è stato registrato da SMART-1 usando lo spettrografo D-CIXS.
"Top Left: GOES X-ray spectrum showing the Solar input. Note the flares around 06:00 UT on 15 January 2005 (GOES Data Courtesy NOAA).
Lower Left: D-CIXS spectrograms showing fluorescence emission from the Moon as a response. The 3 panels show the summed outputs of the 3 separate D-CIXS facets.
Top Right: Area of the Moon overflown during this observation, running from 15° to 45° North, at 60° East long., including Mare Crisium in the southern part of the region.
Bottom Right: The derived X-ray spectrum, indicating lunar elemental composition. Note the prominent Calcium feature, as well as visible Aluminium, Silicon and Iron". Giu 11, 2005
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00-SMART1.jpgSMART-1 and the Moon77 visiteSMART-1's science payload, with a total mass of some 15 Kg, features many innovative instruments and advanced technologies. These are:
- AMIE, a miniaturised HR camera for Lunar Surface imaging;
- SIR, a Near-Infrared Point-Spectrometer for Lunar mineralogy investigation;
- D-CIXS, a very compact X-ray Spectrometer with a new type of detector and micro-collimator which will provide fluorescence spectroscopy and imagery of the Moon's surface elemental composition;
- XSM, an X-ray monitor to support D-CIXS by providing measurements of solar X-ray emission for calibration:
- KaTE, an experiment aimed at demonstrating deep-space telemetry and telecommand communications in the X and Ka-bands;
- RSIS, a Radio-Science Experiment relying on KaTE. It monitors the electric propulsion by means of tracking techniques. In lunar orbit it will, with AMIE, also study the Moon's libration.Giu 02, 2005
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0-SMART-1.jpgSMART-1 and the Moon90 visiteThe solar electric primary propulsion on-board SMART-1 is a Stationary Plasma Hall-effect thruster, the PPS-1350 developed by SNECMA, France. Using Xenon gas as propellant and the power from the spacecraft's solar arrays, the thruster is capable of providing a thrust of something like 70 milliNewtons. Using the thrust of the electric propulsion system, SMART-1 progressively expanded its orbit, spiralling out from Earth and was caught by the Moon's gravitational field on 15 November 2004, nearly 14 months after launch. In order to enhance the capture opportunities and to save precious fuel, SMART-1 also made use of celestial mechanics, including Moon resonances and swing-bys. The spacecraft exploited the unstable regions of space where the gravity field of Earth and Moon compete and which are normally avoided by conventional trajectories. It passed through the L1 point of the Earth-Moon System which allowed for the spacecraft to be caught by the Moon's gravity. Giu 02, 2005
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08-AMIEmosaic-291204.jpgGioja, Mouchez, Poncelet, Carpenter and Pythagoras106 visiteUn bellissimo foto-mosaico (purtroppo una delle pochissime immagini ad oggi disponibili della Luna 'vista' dalla Sonda Europea SMART-1) che ci mostra una serie di interessanti e relativamente famosi crateri - su tutti il Cratere Pitagora - ripresi da una distanza di circa 4000 Km.Giu 02, 2005
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07-Smart-1_lunar-eclipse_family-portrait.jpgMother Earth and a Lunar Eclypse from Space105 visiteIl sostentamento di una Colonia Lunare (o Marziana, o posta su qualsiasi altro corpo celeste diverso dalla Terra) è, viste le nostre caratteristiche biologiche, le tecnologie disponibili ed i fabbisogni energetici, legato alla possibilità di avere "acqua" a disposizione.
E allora c'è acqua sulla Luna? Forse si ed infatti, accanto a queste zone di luce eterna, ve ne potrebbero essere altre - magari poste sul fondo di grandi crateri - in cui regna il buio eterno e, di conseguenza, il gelo eterno. Un'oscurità ed un gelo perpetui assolutamente necessari affinchè alcune zone della Luna possano essere state capaci di catturare e conservare, attraverso le ere, il ghiaccio d'acqua portato sul nostro Satellite, p.e., dalle comete che lo impattarono.
Bisogna quindi trovare dei "Giacimenti di ghiaccio d'acqua": ecco la chiave di volta per arrivare, in tempi ragionevoli, alla creazione di insediamenti umani permanenti sulla Luna e Marte, i primi due 'outpost' del Genere Umano nel Sistema Solare.Mag 10, 2005
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06-Smart-1_waning-Earth.jpgWaning Earth, from SMART-199 visiteTerra "calante", vista dallo Spazio: ecco una serie di spettacolari fotogrammi ad HD che provengono dalla Sonda ESA "SMART-1". Tra i compiti maggiori di questa piccola Sonda c'è, a detta del Centro Controllo Missione, quello di fornire una mappatura ultra-dettagliata della superficie Lunare, alla ricerca di qualche "posto buono" per la creazione di insediamenti umani permanenti (o, se preferite, di "Colonie Lunari").
I "picchi della Luce Eterna", ad esempio (un'espressione davvero suggestiva per indicare alcune zone della Luna, situate a ridosso dei Poli, le quali potrebbero essere perennemente illuminate dalla luce del Sole), fanno parte dei posti (teoricamente) buoni per pensare ad un insediamento permanente efficace.
E per il sostentamento?Mag 10, 2005
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05-CopernicusHD.jpgThe "Peaks" of Eternal Sun-light (2)208 visiteAstronomers say they have identified a place on the Moon that lies in permanent Sunlight and close to regions suspected to hold water ice: in short, an ideal location for a tentative Lunar Colony.
The spot is located on a highland close to the Lunar North Pole, between 3 large impact craters called Peary, Hermite and Rozhdestvensky (report in Thursday's issue of Nature, the British weekly Science Journal).
The temperature there is estimated to range between -40 and
-60°C, which by Lunar Standards is relatively balmy and stable.
By comparison, the temperature on the Moon's equator ranges from -180°C to +100°C!
Since the area is bathed in perpetual Sun-light, a future human outpost on the Moon could draw on abundant solar energy and,
in addition, the Lunar Pioneers could tap into supplies of water if (as some Scientists speculate) ice lurks in permanently shadowed craters at the Lunar Poles. The study is lead-authored by Ben Bussey of Johns Hopkins University, Maryland.
In January 2004, President George W. Bush sketched plans for a US return to the Moon as early as 2015, saying a lunar base would be a launch pad for manned missions to Mars and "across our Solar System".Mag 04, 2005
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04-CopernicusCrater-LO5.jpgThe "Peaks" of Eternal Sun-light (1)230 visite"If we can confirm peaks of eternal light", says Bernard Foing, SMART-1 Project Scientist, "these could be a key locations for possible future lunar outposts". The existence of peaks of eternal light at the poles, that is areas that remain eternally illuminated regardless of seasonal variations, was first predicted in the second half of the nineteenth century by the astronomer Camille Flammarion.
Even if for most of the Moon the length of the day does not vary perceptibly during the course of seasons, this is not the case over the poles, where illumination can vary extensively during the course of the year. The less favourable illumination conditions occur around the Northern Winter Solstice, around 24 January. There are areas at the bottom of near-polar craters that do not see direct sunshine, where ice might potentially be trapped. Also there are areas at higher elevation on the rim of Polar craters that see the Sun more than half of the time. Eventually, there may be areas that are always illuminated!".Mag 04, 2005
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03-PythagorasCrater-1.jpgPythagoras Crater153 visiteCaption ESA originale:"This mosaic view of Pythagoras is composed of images taken by the AMIE camera during two successive orbits on 29 and 30 December 2004 from an altitude of ~ 4000 Km.
Pythagoras is a 120 km diameter complex large Lunar Crater characterized by a relatively flat crater floor, a central peak and terraced walls.
The terraced walls height reaches 5000 mt."Apr 26, 2005
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01-P-SMART1-hires_34602.jpgThe Moon from SMART-1: a little geography93 visiteCaption ESA originale:"On 29 January 2004, between 20:00 and 21:19 UT, images of the first quarter moon were taken through several filters by the AMIE instrument. The result is a small, but impressive, image revealing, clockwise from the top: Mare Serenitatis, Mare Tranquillitatis, Mare Fecunditatis and Mare Nectaris, with Mare Crisium also visible near the limb". Apr 26, 2005
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