This Is What We Know About Black Holes In Advance Of The Event Horizon Telescope’s First Image

Throwback Thursday: Apollo 11 FAQ Edition

With the help of the NASA History Office, we’ve identified some of the most frequently asked questions surrounding the first time humans walked on the surface of another world. Read on and click here to check out our previous Apollo FAQs. 

How many moon rocks did the Apollo crews bring back? What did we learn?

The six crews that landed on the Moon brought back 842 pounds (382 kilograms) of rocks, sand and dust from the lunar surface. Each time, they were transferred to Johnson Space Center’s Lunar Receiving Laboratory, a building that also housed the astronauts during their three weeks of quarantine. Today the building now houses other science divisions, but the lunar samples are preserved in the Lunar Sample Receiving Laboratory.

Built in 1979, the laboratory is the chief repository of the Apollo samples.

From these pieces of the Moon we learned that its chemical makeup is similar to that of Earth’s, with some differences. Studying the samples has yielded clues to the origins of the solar system. In March of 2019, we announced that three cases of pristine Moon samples will be unsealed for the first time in 50 years so that we can take advantage of the improved technology that exists today! 

Did you know you might not have to travel far to see a piece of the Moon up close? Visit our Find a Moon Rock page to find out where you can visit a piece of the Moon.

What did Apollo astronauts eat on their way to the Moon?

Astronaut food has come a long way since the days of Project Mercury, our first human spaceflight program that ran from 1958-1963. Back then, astronauts “enjoyed” food in cube form or squeezed out of tubes. Early astronaut food menus were designed less for flavor and more for nutritional value, but that eventually shifted as technology evolved. Astronauts today can enjoy whole foods like apples, pizza and even tacos. 

Apollo crews were the first to have hot water, making it easier to rehydrate their foods and improve its taste. They were also the first to use a “spoon bowl,” a plastic container that was somewhat like eating out of a Ziploc bag with a spoon. Here’s an example of a day’s menu for a voyage to the Moon:

Breakfast: bacon squares, strawberry cubes and an orange drink.

Lunch: beef and potatoes, applesauce and a brownie.

Dinner: salmon salad, chicken and rice, sugar cookie cubes and a pineapple grapefruit drink.

What did Michael Collins do while he orbited the Moon, alone in the Command Module?

As Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin worked on the lunar surface, Command Module pilot Michael Collins orbited the Moon, alone, for the next 21.5 hours. On board he ran systems checks, made surface observations and communicated with Mission Control when there wasn’t a communications blackout. Blackouts happened every time Collins went behind the Moon. In 2009, Collins wrote this in response to a flurry of media questions about the 40th anniversary of the mission:

Q. Circling the lonely Moon by yourself, the loneliest person in the universe, weren’t you lonely? A. No. Far from feeling lonely or abandoned, I feel very much a part of what is taking place on the lunar surface. I know that I would be a liar or a fool if I said that I have the best of the three Apollo 11 seats, but I can say with truth and equanimity that I am perfectly satisfied with the one I have. This venture has been structured for three men, and I consider my third to be as necessary as either of the other two.”

What will Artemis astronauts bring back when they land on the Moon?

Artemis missions to the Moon will mark humanity’s first permanent presence on another world. The first woman and the next man to explore the lunar surface will land where nobody has ever attempted to land before – on the Moon’s south pole where there are billions of tons of water ice that can be used for oxygen and fuel. We don’t know yet what astronauts will bring back from this unexplored territory, but we do know that they will return with hope and inspiration for the next generation of explorers: the Artemis generation. Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.

Asperitas and Mammatus

Well-defined, wave-like structures in the underside of the cloud; more chaotic and with less horizontal organization than the variety undulatus. Asperitas is characterized by localized waves in the cloud base, either smooth or dappled with smaller features, sometimes descending into sharp points, as if viewing a roughened sea surface from below. Varying levels of illumination and thickness of the cloud can lead to dramatic visual effects.

Occurs mostly with Stratocumulus and Altocumulus

Mammatus is a cellular pattern of pouches hanging underneath the base of a cloud, typically cumulonimbus rainclouds, although they may be attached to other classes of parent clouds.

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Google Classroom FINALLY lets you add a “Materials” section under “Classwork”

Literally two days ago they added the ability to add a new kind of post under a Classwork topic. “Materials” (instead of Assignment or Question) 

This is your workaround for losing the “About” page. Set up a topic called “About” or “Resources”, then add a “Materials” post under that topic. Boom, done!

ALSO, if you created a Google Classroom before the update, and only have the Stream and People pages, you can now manually add a Classwork page by clicking the grey question mark in the bottom left corner, then selecting “Add Classwork page”.

Try it out, today! 

Your Friendly Neighborhood Google for Education Certified Trainer, 

-WCT

Earth as viewed from 10,000 miles. In 1969, the Apollo 4 unmanned test flight made a great ellipse around Earth as a test of the translunar motors and of the high speed entry required of a manned flight returning from the moon. A 70mm camera was programmed to look out a window toward Earth, and take a series of photographs from “high apogee”. Coastal Brazil, Atlantic Ocean, West Africa, Antarctica, looking west. This photograph was made when the Apollo 4 spacecraft, still attached to the S-IVB (third) stage, was orbiting Earth at an altitude of 9,544 miles. source

7 Fascinating Facts About 2019’s Only Total Solar Eclipse

“3.) Optimally situated viewers will experience 4 minutes and 33 seconds of totality. With Earth near aphelion and the Moon near perigee, it’s nearly twice the duration of 2017’s eclipse.”

On July 2, 2019, the world will experience a total solar eclipse: the only one of the year. Unlike the famous 2017 solar eclipse which spanned the continental United States, this year’s total solar eclipse occurs almost exactly coincident with both lunar perigee, where the Moon is closest to Earth, and solar aphelion, where the Sun is at its farthest point from Earth. July 2nd is just 2 days before our annual aphelion and 3 days before our monthly perigee, meaning that we’ll get 4 minutes and 33 seconds of totality during maximum eclipse: nearly twice as long as 2017′s maximum totality and the longest total solar eclipse we’ll experience until 2027.

What will we learn? What will we see? And how can you observe it from anywhere in the world? Find out these and more amazing facts before the eclipse passes!

I love baby huskies ❤️

Happy 230th Birthday, Enceladus, Our Solar System’s Greatest Hope For Life Beyond Earth

“It is still a complete unknown whether Earth is the only world in the Solar System to house any form of life: past or present. Venus and Mars may have been Earth-like for a billion years or more, and life could have arisen there early on. Frozen worlds with subsurface oceans, like Enceladus, Europa, Triton or Pluto, are completely different from Earth’s present environment, but have the same raw ingredients that could potentially lead to life as well.

Are water, energy, and the right molecules all we need for life to arise? Finding even the most basic organisms (or even the precursor components of organisms) anyplace else in the Universe would lead to a scientific revolution. A single discovered cell in the geysers of Enceladus would be the most momentous discovery of the 21st century. With the recent demise of Cassini, on the 230th anniversary of Enceladus’ discovery, the possibility of finding the incredible compels us to go back. May we be bold enough to make it so.”

On this date in 1789, William Herschel, armed with the most powerful telescope known to humanity at the time (you can get a lot of grant money when you discover the planet Uranus and name it after the King), discovered a relatively small moon of Saturn just 500 kilometers across: Enceladus. For some 200 years, Enceladus was never seen as more than a single pixel across, until the Voyager probes flew by it. What they revealed was a remarkable, unique world in all the Solar System. Now that the Cassini mission is complete, we can look back at all we know about this world, and all the signs point to a remarkable story: there’s a subsurface ocean, possibly suitable as a home for undersea life.

Is Enceladus truly our Solar System’s best hope for life beyond Earth? That’s debatable, but there’s every reason to be hopeful. Come get the story here.

The funny cat stories

HiPOD (31 August 2018) Dunes in South Xainza Crater

   – They look so innocent… (270 km above the surface. Black and white is less than 5 km across; enhanced color is less than 1 km.)

NASA/JPL/University of Arizona