An astrophile needs to know that Earth will soon welcome a new moon for a short period. I didn’t make the story, it is true. Earth with the help of its gravity will pull an asteroid towards it and will set it free after two months. As per the finding by the scientists, an asteroid of about 10 meters in diameter, will be captured by the Earth’s gravity and will return to its path that is an orbit around the Sun in November. This finding is based on the trajectory, size, and speed of the asteroid.

This celestial phenomenon is said to be a “temporarily captured flyby” in which an asteroid enters Earth’s gravitational orbit but does not complete multiple orbits. This phenomenon was seen in 2006 also when an asteroid stayed in Earth’s orbit and remained there for nearly half a year before leaving. And another came in 2020. This phenomenon takes place regularly and Earth captures small asteroids from the Near Earth Object population. Those who have an interest in these things need to know that though it presents a great opportunity for scientists, it will be faint for the naked eye. You can use a telescope to witness this phenomenon and better understand gravitational interactions.

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New lunar material has been discovered by Chinese scientists from the sample they’ve collected from the moon’s surface as part of the country’s 5th lunar exploration mission. This makes China the third country to discover lunar material.

Read more about it below.

China Discovers a New Lunar Material

Chang’e 5, China’s 5th lunar exploration mission landed on the surface of the moon at the Oceanus Procellarum on the 1st of December 2020 and is considered the first lunar sample return mission since 1970 after the Luna 16 space mission. As part of the mission, Chinese scientists collected more than 1.7 kilograms of lunar samples, and the new lunar material was discovered in the lunar basalt particles.

The new lunar material discovered by China is the 6th lunar material discovered so far and this discovery has also made China the third country to discover a lunar material followed by the United States and Russia. Chinese scientists have also named the new lunar material Changesite-(Y) after the Chinese moon goddess, Chang’e, and consider the new material as the key to limitless power.

The primary ingredient of the Changesite-(Y) is Helium 3 which is very rare on the surface of the earth but present abundantly on the moon. Helium 3 is also considered a stable source of fuel for nuclear fusion reactors.

Nuclear fusion is a natural process that takes place when two light atoms are combined in order to form a much heavier atom. This process takes place under extreme heat and pressure and is a process that takes place inside the stars.

Currently, we do not have a nuclear fusion reactor and the nuclear fission reactors used to create energy also creates a lot of unwanted nuclear waste which is a great threat to mankind. Nuclear fusion reactors are a much safer and much more efficient option compared to nuclear fission reactors and Helium 3 would become a perfect element for the process.

Plans for mining Helium 3 from the Moon’s surface have started to be discussed and the huge cost for the process is being estimated. China’s next lunar exploration mission, Chang’e 6 is expected to launch in 2024 and is planned on collecting lunar samples from the far side of the moon, a side of the Moon that never faces Earth.

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The first space traveler is now on a different journey. This time, he is prepared to use Elon Musk’s Starship to orbit the Moon.

21 years ago, Dennis Tito, now 82, spent a brief stint aboard the International Space Station. The man will now travel to the moon for a week, passing by it only 200 kilometers away. The man will be accompanied by ten other individuals, including his wife Akiko, so he won’t be traveling alone.

Tito is aware that it will take some time for Starship to complete its testing and development before attempting this trip to the moon. If it weren’t for this trip, Tito told The Associated Press, “I might be sitting in a rocking chair, not doing any good exercise if it wasn’t for this mission” Tito didn’t say how much he was paying for the flight, but according to EuroNext, his trip to the ISS cost $20 million. His voyage to the ISS cost $20 million, which he is paying for out of pocket.

Tito highlighted that although he announced on Wednesday, he and his wife had already signed a contract with SpaceX in August 2021.

He has a five-year window to select a flight under the terms of his contract. Tito would be 87 years old by then, and he needed a way out in case his health deteriorated.

Tito, a former engineer who is currently employed as a financial analyst, made history in 2001 when he paid for a trip to space on Russia’s Soyuz TM-32 mission. The man spent more than eight days on board the ISS.

It appears that NASA, a US agency, did not want a visitor around while the station was being built. However, the Russian organization needed the cash, so it let the US-based Space Adventures fly a few wealthy clients into orbit.

Dennis Tito, the 82-year-old aerospace engineer-turned-financial analyst who paid Russia $20 million for a trip to the space station in 2001, is working with SpaceX on plans to take him and his wife on a flight around the moon aboard a SpaceX Starship pic.twitter.com/5zEMZdZgle

— William Harwood (@cbs_spacenews) October 12, 2022

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In a recently released video, the space heroes can be seen repeatedly falling while attempting to maneuver on the rocky surface of the Moon.

The outtakes of NASA astronauts trying to walk on the moon are amazing. pic.twitter.com/MVviyifDQF

— Sahil Bloom (@SahilBloom) September 7, 2022

The rough lunar surface is a challenge for astronauts wearing padded spacesuits.
Despite being amusing, the footage was taken by NASA to study astronauts losing their equilibrium.

NASA tracked the metabolic rates of astronauts moving across flat terrain and up and down slopes using footage from the Apollo 15 mission.

According to ScienceAlert, footage from Apollo 16 was also reviewed to understand how human mobility and dexterity varied between the Earth and the Moon. Locomotion is difficult on the Moon because its gravity is so much lower.

In actuality, the Moon’s gravity is only about a sixth as strong as Earth’s. On Earth, if you drop something, it will fall at a speed of about 9.807 meters per second. The object will descend at a far slower rate of 1.62 meters per second on the Moon, though. This has an unexpected effect since there is a difference between mass and weight.

Simply multiplying your body’s mass by the gravitational constant gives you weight. On the Moon, your mass doesn’t change, but your weight does. Additionally, your mass, not your weight, determines your inertia, which is your moving body’s resistance to changes in direction. Even if inertia is constant on the Moon, you “feel” lighter.

You move quite awkwardly as a result because your movements take unanticipated turns. The world is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing the same week that the video is made public.

On July 16, 1969, three astronauts, including Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong, launched from Florida. And on July 20, they landed on the Moon, making history by being the first humans to set foot there.

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Why Does the Moon orbit around the Earth?

The only naturally occurring, permanently positioned satellite of the Earth is the Moon, but how did it get there and why did it even start orbiting the earth in the first place?
What justifies the Moon’s orbit around the Earth, then? This is due to a phenomenon known as the Hill Sphere. The Earth’s gravity dominates and can defeat that of a much larger and farther away object in this region of space (The Sun). The Earth and Moon are subsequently dragged toward the Sun.
The Sun exerts nearly two times as much gravitational attraction on the Moon as does the Earth.

Every object in space, including planets, moons, and stars, has a region surrounding it where its gravity, despite its greater mass, is stronger than that of an object farther away.

What we have here is the Hill sphere. The position of three celestial bodies near one another’s Hill Spheres determines how they move when they interact through gravity.
The area where a body’s gravitational pull supersedes that of other (usually larger) nearby bodies is known as the Hill Sphere of that body.

It is affected by the semi-major axis, the eccentricity of the orbit, and the independent masses of the constituent parts.

The Hill sphere, which encircles the Earth, has a radius of around 1.5 million kilometers, which is more than enough to fit the moon’s orbit. If the Moon were any farther away or if both the Earth and Moon were any closer to the Sun, it wouldn’t orbit us here on Earth.

It is essential to keep in mind that Earth’s gravity predominates inside the Hill sphere while the Sun pushes Earth and the Moon together (almost as one entity together).

Although it orbits the Earth more closely, the moon orbits the Sun indirectly.

Here are some interesting facts about Moon orbiting around Sun

-The Moon’s whole orbit around the Earth takes around 27 days.
-The Moon rotates synchronously. This indicates that it always faces Earth with the same face.
-Both the Moon and Earth revolve about their axes in the opposite direction of how the Sun and Earth orbit each other.
-The Moon’s orbit around the Earth resembles a nearly round ellipse.
-The Moon is more impacted by Earth’s gravity than the Earth is by the Moon since it has a lower mass.
-The Moon has a significant impact on our ocean tides, which is one of its most significant effects on Earth.

What would happen if the Moon stops orbiting around the Earth?

Before I answer this question, you should be aware that this is probably never going to happen. No such event has any chance of happening unless a massive planet like Mars approaches the Earth-Moon system.

The moon’s interaction with the tides in its orbit around the earth has greatly slowed the Earth’s rotation over the past 4 billion years. This rotational energy has moved the moon into a higher orbit. The moon continues to move farther away from us each year, moving a few centimeters away.

The biggest impact if the Moon were to separate from Earth would be the absence of tides on Earth. Tides are caused by variations in the equatorial regions’ gravitational force, where the portion of Earth closest to the Moon is subjected to a stronger gravitational attraction than the region of Earth farthest from the Moon. Consequently, high and low tides form in diverse locations on Earth.

Beyond tidal pressures, the Moon has no other geological or climatic effects on Earth. There will be worries about things like the Moon no longer lighting up the night sky and the end of solar eclipses, but neither the geology nor temperature of the Earth will change.

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Two astrophotographers have just released what they claim is “the most insanely detailed picture” of the Moon, the product of a two-year, neck-craning endeavor that took over 200,000 frames.

For millennia, humans have looked up and seen the same silver orb traversing the night sky – but never quite like this. As space photography enthusiast Andrew McCarthy says of his collaboration with planetary scientist Connor Matherne, “behold” this stunning image:

While looking at this 174-megapixel beauty, you can see the Moon, which is colored red and gunmetal blue and is lighted on the right side as it faces Earth. McCarthy stated on Twitter that the red areas are iron and feldspar oxidized by wayward oxygen atoms from Earth.

Though the colors appear to be artificial, they are technically the Moon’s genuine hues; our eyes are simply not sensitive enough to see them, so McCarthy enhanced the image with saturation to bring out the colors in all their splendor.

McCarthy’s expertise is detailed photography, which he uses to record every nook, crook, and crater on the lunar surface. Matherne, a planetary scientist and deep space photographer based in Louisiana, is also responsible for the color.

The masterpiece was created using over 200,000 photos collected over the course of a single evening and piled together.

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Recent data presented by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has led scientists to conclusions that the moon hosts around 200 pits that offers stable, human-friendly temperatures. 

NASA stated on Wednesday that these pits always hover around a comfortable 63F/17 degree Celsius. 

A steady 17 degree Celsius contrast is clearly noticeable with the rest of the Moon’s service. This fluctuates between 127C/260F to -173C/-280F across a full Lunar day. Shaded bits of lava tubes stay at 17 degree Celsius on all lunar day and all lunar night. 

These temperatures creates environment that complicates lunar exploration for machines and for humans. This is the reason why warm spots on the Moon are hot property. 

Pits on the moon was discovered back in the year 2009 by JAXA’s SELENE spacecraft. Since then there has been curious interests in whether they would provide access to caves that could be explored by rovers and astronauts. 

NASA is going back to the Moon with commercial and international partners. This would help them stretch scientific knowledge and expand human presence in the space. 

Artemis, a program of the space organization, aims on taking human to the lunar South Pole by 2025. This would be the first crewed lunar landing since 1972’s APOLLO 17. 

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According to the reports of AFP News Agency citing state media, China on Sunday launched the second of the three space station modules.

China was expected to launch the second module for its Tiangong space station on July 24 from the Wenchang spaceport in south China.

According to Space.com, The Wentian module will launch on board the huge Long March 5B rocket and should join up with the Chinese space station’s Tianhe core module hours later, expanding the country’s crewed space research facility.

“Wentian is both a science module and an area to expand the living space aboard the small space station. It includes experiment cabinets for performing science work, along with more astronaut sleeping quarters to allow crew handovers. Once the module is ready, Tiangong will be able to host temporarily as many as six crew members,” a source as per Space.com.

The 174-foot (53-meter tall) Long March 5B is a Chinese heavy-lift rocket variant designed to launch China’s space station modules, which each have a mass of about 48,500 pounds (22,000 kg).

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The Chinese Academy of Sciences is all set to probe the solar system including Moon, Venus, and Sun in their upcoming space investigation.

The Chinese Academy of Sciences abbreviated as CAS is a national academy of natural sciences for the People’s Republic of China. Moreover, it was established back in 1949 i.e. 72 years ago.

This Academy was founded by the Government Administration Council of the Central People’s Government.

Additionally, it has 60,000 researchers working for this academy. Also CAS has 11+ branches with 100+ research institutes and 3 universities.

However, there are existing samples from Mars, Moon and Space. Now China is fully focused on selecting big-ticket missions for further studying the Sun, Moon and Venus.

CAS is probably continuing with five missions as a part of the third Strategic Priority Program (SPP III) project, spacenews reported.

However, China will launch this project during 2026-2030, of which the priority list and selection list will be ready by the end of 2022. This upcoming space exploration is China’s 15th Five year plan.

Meanwhile, China is probably choosing Closeby Habitable Exoplanet Survey (CHES) and Earth 2.0 (ET) missions which focus on studying 100 sun-like stars within 33 light-years.

Moreover, the scientists have proposed four missions under heliophysics focused around the Sun.

It includes, SOlar Ring (SOR) to study the Sun and inner heliosphere, Solar Polar-orbit Observatory (SPO) to study solar poles, Chinese Heliospheric Interstellar Medium Explorer (CHIME) mission to conduct first measurements of interstellar gas and dust.

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Chinese ground crews are eagerly awaiting the return of a lunar probe that is bringing back the first fresh samples of rock and debris from the moon in more than 45 years.

The Chang’e probe is expected to make landfall in the Siziwang district of the vast Inner Mongolia region late Wednesday or early Thursday. It is difficult however to predict precisely where it will land.

The recovery of the return vehicle though will be more complicated than was thought to be before. Owing to the small size, darkness and heavy snow, things might get a little difficult for the return vehicle.

China’s Chang’e 5 Moon Probe Begins Journey Back to Earth

State broadcaster CCTV showed four military helicopters standing by Wednesday morning at a base on the snow-covered grasslands. Crews in vehicles on the ground will also seek to hone in on signals. While sprawling in size, the area is relatively familiar because of its use as a landing site for China’s Shenzhou crewed spaceships.

Chang’e 5 landed on the moon on December 1 and collected about 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds) of samples by scooping them from the surface, and by drilling 2 metres (about 6 feet) into the moon’s crust. The samples were deposited in a sealed container that was carried back to the return module by an ascent vehicle. The space craft was seen flying a Chinese flag.

The spacecraft’s return marks the first time scientists have obtained fresh samples of lunar rocks since the former Soviet Union’s Luna 24 robot probe in 1976.

Chang’e 5 took off from a launch base in China’s southern island province of Hainan on November 23. The mission is expected to last for 23 days.

The successful return of Chang’e 5 marks the third successful lunar landing but the first one to successfully lift off from the moon. Its predecessor, Chang’e 4, was the first probe to land on the moon’s little-explored far side and report on the conditions regarding an extended stay on the moon by humans.

Chinese space programs have particularly focused on the moon which it tells has plans of sending humans there to start a colony. This could possibly serve as a permanent settlement for humans. However, no timeline or relevant details have been announced regarding this vision.

The rocks and debris brought back by Chang’e 5 are thought to be billions of years younger than those that were obtained by the US and former Soviet Union. This could potentially offer a newer and better understanding of the natural satellite.

The samples will be analysed and shared with other countries.

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