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I’m not worried. The last time any Gods showed up, we killed it — nailed the fucking thing to a cross and let it bleed to death. This was during the Roman Empire when the highest technology was what, a slightly faster chariot? A Galleon with archers on deck?

It’s 2012. We’ve got battleships, satellites, hypersonic jet aircraft, helicopter gunships, atomic weapons, and a grudge deeper than Mariana’s Trench.

You want to destroy the Earth? Well, you’ll have to get through us first.

Source: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotScience/~3/rxO3EnpmbPA/moon-may-not-be-as-dead-as-we-thought

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China’s space agency released an amazingly detailed map of the moon this week, marking the best view yet of the lunar surface as seen by a Chinese spacecraft, according to state officials.

The new moon map is made up of many high-resolution photos snapped by China’s second lunar probe ? the Chang’e 2 orbiter ? and stitched together into complete view. China’s State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense revealed the moon map during a ceremony on Monday (Feb. 6), and the country’s Ministry of National Defense posted the photos on the Web.

Liu Dongkui, deputy chief commander of China’s lunar probe project, reportedly said the Chang’e 2 lunar map is the highest-resolution view of the moon ever recorded, according to a Xinhua news agency report.

While other spacecraft, such as NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, have taken better photos of certain portions of the moon, the Chang’e 2 map is the most detailed view of the entire lunar surface, he added. [Photos from China's new moon map]

The new moon map was assembled from photos taken by Chang’e 2 as it skimmed over the lunar surface at altitudes of between 9 and 62 miles (15 and 100 kilometers) between October 2010 and May 2011 during its primary mission. The photos have a resolution of about 23 feet (7 meters) and are 17 times sharper than the moon photos snapped by China’s first lunar orbiter, Chang’e 1.

China launched the $132 million Chang’e 2 mission in October 2011 as a follow-up to the Chang’e 1 flight in 2007. The second lunar probe’s main mission was to scout for potential landing sites for China’s first moon lander, the Chang’e 3 spacecraft, which is slated to launch in 2013.

China’s lunar exploration efforts are part of a three-phase program named after the mythical Chinese moon goddess Chang’e. The first phase of the program involves orbital reconnaissance of the moon, followed by a robotic lunar landing and later a sample-return mission.

The Chang’e 2 mission made a special point of examining a region of the moon’s northern hemisphere known as Sinus Iridium (Bay of Rainbows), which is a top contender for China’s first robotic moon landing.

After completing its primary goals last year, Chang’e 2 left the moon’s orbit on an extended mission to explore a deep space. Today, Chang’e 2 is studying the Lagrange point 2, a stable point in space about 932,056 miles (1.5 million kilometers) from Earth on the side of the planet that is opposite the sun.

You can follow SPACE.com Managing Editor Tariq Malik on Twitter @tariqjmalik. Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/space/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/space/20120210/sc_space/chinaunveilsbestmoonmapyetfromlunarorbiter

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According to MSNBC, NASA planners are looking at two of the Lagrange points where the gravity of the Earth and the moon cancel one another out at initial destinations for the first human explorers beyond low Earth orbit.

What are the Earth-Moon Lagrange Points?

The Lagrange points are areas in space where the gravity of two celestial bodies cancel one another out. There are five Lagrange points in the Earth-Moon system. L1 lies between Earth and the moon. L2 is beyond the lunar farside. L3 is on the opposite side of Earth from the moon. L4 and L5 make equilateral triangles with Earth and the moon.

Of the Lagrange points, L4 and L5 seem to be the most stable. L1, L2, and L3 are less so, though a space craft could park at either of those places using a “halo orbit,” which is not technically an orbit at all, but a repeating path near the Lagrange point in question. Some station keeping with rocket engines would be required.

Why go to a Lagrange Point?

In the first case, they are easy to get to, even more so than lunar orbit and especially more so than the lunar surface. Lockheed Martin proposed an early space flight to the Earth-Moon L2 point with an Orion spacecraft for long term observations of the lunar farside. This was meant to be a test of the system before more ambitious missions were undertaken to Earth approaching asteroids and eventually Mars.

The idea is to establish small space stations at L1, which faces the lunar nearside, and L2, which faces the lunar farside. These would serve as bases to use tele-operated robots to explore the lunar surface and to build infrastructure for an eventual human return.

It is claimed tele-presence has advanced to a degree that they could provide “avatar-like” access to environments that humans would ordinarily be unable to go to. People in a nearby space station would use such robots as eyes and hands to explore the moon or another planet.

Such a scheme would fit neatly into a plan advanced to use precursor robots to build a lunar base for human astronauts advanced by Paul Spudis of the Lunar and Planetary Institute and Tony Lavoie of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center.

Long-Term Implications

One aspect of using tele-operated robots on the moon is that it would serve as a test run for using such machines in more human-hostile environments such as the surface of Venus or in the Titan methane lakes.

If the idea is actually put into effect, the “humans vs. robots” controversy which ranged from the dawn of the space age until the 2004 study by the Royal Astronomical Society that demonstrated the scientific utility of human astronauts will be revived. Tele-operated robots, it will be argued, combine the flexibility of humans and the durability of machines. Human space exploration advocates will counter that there is still no substitute for a human mind and human eyes on the scene to explore a place properly. Finally, space settlements cannot be inhabited by robots. Those need human beings.

Mark R. Whittington is the author of Children of Apollo and The Last Moonwalker . He has written on space subjects for a variety of periodicals, including The Houston Chronicle, The Washington Post, USA Today, the L.A. Times, and The Weekly Standard.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/science/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20120111/sc_ac/10822043_nasa_mulls_missions_to_earthmoon_lagrange_points

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The idea of astronomy conducted by observatories based on the lunar surface has been a dream since the Apollo moon landings. A group called Moon Express, one of the entrants to the Google Lunar X-Prize, proposes to make that dream a reality, according to MSNBC.

Why a lunar based observatory?

An old article in Space.com describes some of the benefits and possibilities. A lunar-based observatory has every benefit that a space-based telescope such as the Hubble had in the fact that there is no atmosphere impeding it. The added benefit of placing a telescope on the moon is that a solid surface is provided.

The lunar farside, shielded from the glare and the electromagnetic noise of the Earth, is considered ideal for optical and radio astronomy. Setting up such and infrastructure would be challenging, even if a lunar base existed to support it. But scientists believe the rewards would be huge indeed.

NASA envisions building a telescope mirror out of lunar materials to create a 50-meter telescope, something unimaginable on Earth. One such telescope would be able to image extrasolar planets with enough clarity to detect biomarkers of life such as ozone and methane in their atmosphere. Two such telescopes working in tandem could image oceans and continents on such worlds.

How is Moon Express going to advance the science of moon based astronomy?

The Moon Express lander will carry the ILO-X or International Lunar Observatory as an instrument. ILO-X is a shoe box size, light weight telescope and camera that will take images of celestial objects once the lander touches down on the moon. An ILO-X prototype has already been successfully tested at the top of Hawaii’s Mauna Kea volcano, despite a storm that raged at the time. A flight ready article will go with Moon Express when it goes to the moon in 2014. It is planned to be just the first of lunar based telescopes of increasing size and sophistication.

What is Moon Express?

Moon Express is a private company that means to make a profit off of unmanned lunar exploration and ultimately by mining the moon. It is an entrant to the Google Lunar X Prize competition that proposes to award cash prizes to the first private group to land a rover on the lunar surface and perform certain, predefined tasks. Moon Express is particularly keen on getting at rare earth elements on the Moon which are considered crucial to a number of high tech products.

Mark R. Whittington is the author of Children of Apollo and The Last Moonwalker. He has written on space subjects for a variety of periodicals, including The Houston Chronicle, The Washington Post, USA Today, the L.A. Times and The Weekly Standard.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/space/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20111220/sc_ac/10720797_ilox_to_be_the_first_moonbased_telescope

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ROFL. Yeah, when we land there. It’s ONLY 600 light years after all.

I get it, I really do. We’ve only barely been to our own moon. We can’t even get to mars. If we said we were going to send a probe you’d have every right to laugh, let alone a manned mission.

But hear me out first.

Mankind has only been engaged in industry for a couple of hundred years. And that was enough to get us to the moon. And humanity has no signs of ending anytime soon. What will we be capable of in another thousand years? Ten thousand? A million? Because if we don’t do anything stupid we have that time. Our sun has a few billion years left in it.

It’s important to look for extrasolar planets. It is important to see if they can maintain human life.

Reason being, that’s the first step. We won’t ever try to leave this solar system if we have no expectations to be able to survive out there. Now we are finding out that there are planets out there that might be able to support us. Now we have a reason to want to try to reach them. Yes, 600 light years is an uncrossable barrier to us. Today. But if you told the Wright brothers that we’d be walking on the moon in 70 years they would have told you you’re nuts. They wouldn’t have believed it. Another uncrossable barrier. To them. Not to us.

Finding these planets is exciting. It says that there is a reason to try to go. It kindles a desire to go see them. And given a million years of human progress, the science *will* come. Maybe it won’t be as sexy as warp ships. Maybe it’ll just be colony ships moving at a fraction of light speed and take a thousand years to get there. But one way or another, we will get there.

We will most likely visit this planet. Someday.

Source: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotScience/~3/v8RWS68ZlLI/kepler-confirms-exoplanet-inside-stars-habitable-zone

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