CNET: NASA Just Opened a 50-Year-Old Time Capsule From the Moon. “In December 1972, NASA astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt drilled into the surface of the moon to collect lunar soil samples for transport back to Earth. This week, NASA finally opened one of the vacuum-sealed samples following a painstaking process.”
New York Times: 2022 Is Full of First Steps to the Moon. “Robotic missions to Mars and advances in space tourism dominated the space activities of 2021. But in 2022, the moon is likely to stand out, as companies and governments launch various moon-bound spacecraft.”
University of New South Wales: Lunar architecture: small step for 3D printers, giant leap for humankind. “3D printing has come a long way in very a short time, with products including furniture, food and even bones being manufactured by the technology. But a team from UNSW are planning to push the boundaries of 3D printing even further with a proposal that is out of this world. UNSW Computational Design wants to use a 3D printer to build a house. But not just an ordinary house in the suburbs – one that is 385,000km away from Earth.”
Techdirt: PSA: Universal Music Group Has Copyrighted The Moon. That is All.. “I know, I know, you’re thinking, ‘The moon? Is Timothy having another stroke while writing a post?’ First off, my personal health is none of your concern. And secondly, nope, because a video recording of the moon as seen from Greece, which included no audio, was blocked all over the place due to a copyright claim made by Universal Music Group.”
Emory News Center: New Emory digital learning hub marks Apollo 15 moon mission’s 50th anniversary. “In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 15 Mission, the Emory Center for Digital Scholarship (ECDS) has launched a new digital learning hub that assembles, preserves and makes available primary source records of Apollo 15 for research, education, history and as an example of a unique human endeavor. The hub will offer access to a digital archive of Apollo 15 onboard materials, an interactive 3D model of the lunar module and links to reliable primary sources of Apollo history.”
In honor of Super Moons, from Skies & Scopes: Best Astrophotography Apps (for brilliant night sky photography). “Having the best astrophotography apps on your smartphone or tablet can be a fantastic and inexpensive shortcut towards nailing a great shot of the night sky. The difference between taking a great astronomy photograph or not can often be external factors, such as finding the right location, waiting for optimal conditions, and timing it right. There are some great free (or cheap) apps available that can help your astrophotography.”
Science Focus: How to see the Pink supermoon 2021 tonight.”Missed last night’s Pink supermoon? Good news: the April full Moon, the fourth of 2021, will also be visible this evening. And, just like last night, it will appear a massive 30 per cent brighter and 14 per cent larger than some previous full Moons. So, why exactly does the supermoon seem so large? What’s the best way to photograph it? And will it actually look even slightly pink? All answers to these lunar inquiries (and more) are below.” I had no idea there were astronomy photography apps.
Royal Astronomical Society: Can you help us find the Moon Trees?. “There could be as many as 15 Moon Trees in the UK – trees grown from seeds flown around the Moon by NASA astronaut Stuart Roosa on the Apollo 14 mission in 1971. But where are they now? The Royal Astronomical Society and the UK Space Agency would love to know, in their joint quest to find these living pieces of space history.”
Arizona State University: Create your own planetary adventure with ASU’s new 3D terrain app. “… the Mars Space Flight Facility teamed up recently with Assistant Professor Robert LiKamWa and graduate student Lauren Gold of the Meteor Studio in ASU’s School of Arts Media and Engineering to launch a new smartphone app called JMARS AR Viewer. In developing the app, they were assisted by ASU undergraduates Hannah Bartolomea and Shaun Xiong, and Hamilton High School student Alexander Gonzalez. Downloadable for free from the Apple and Android stores, the JMARS AR Viewer allows users to virtually project planetary terrains from Mars, Mercury, Earth and the moon onto their physical environment.”
Emulsive: One Giant Leap… Remastering High-resolution Images Of NASA’s Race To The Moon. “Historically, most of the photographs presented in the media have been based on decades-old, low-resolution scans/digitisation. This has been remedied somewhat by efforts to create high-resolution scans of the negatives, although many of the ~35,000 frames from NASA’s Apollo archive at the Johnson Space Center still need work to bring out the detail we all know is stored in those amazing Kodak negatives and slides. This is where Andy Saunders comes in. Over the past few years, Andy has worked tirelessly to remaster both high- and low-resolution scans from NASA’s archive, bringing many 16mm, 35mm and 70mm slides and negatives from the Apollo missions into sharp relief for the first time.” The article called Mr. Saunders’ work “astounding” and that ain’t the half of it.
The Verge: I climbed onto my roof for this Pearl Jam app. “There is only one man who could get me to soberly climb onto my building’s rooftop for a gimmicky artificial reality app in the middle of February, and his name is Eddie Vedder, the frontman of ‘90s Seattle grunge group Pearl Jam. On Thursday, Pearl Jam rolled out a snippet of a new song entitled ‘Superblood Wolfmoon’ that you can only listen to by pointing your phone at the Moon.”
Ars Technica: China’s lander releases data, high-resolution images of the Moon. “A little more than one year ago, China’s Chang’e 4 spacecraft landed on the far side of the Moon. In doing so, it became the first-ever vehicle to make a soft landing on the side of the Moon facing away from Earth. To mark the one-year anniversary, China released a batch of scientific data and images captured by five scientific payloads aboard the 1.2-ton spacecraft and its small Yutu 2 rover.”
TechCrunch: NASA shares 3D Moon data for CG artists and creators. “If you want to set your movie or game on the Moon, it’s not hard to find imagery of our photogenic satellite. But NASA has just released a useful and beautiful new set of data just for creators that includes not just imagery but depth data, making it simple to build an incredibly detailed 3D map of the Moon.”
Poynter: Would you please help fact-checkers fight those never-ending moon hoaxes?. “Around the world, fact-checkers are popularly known for their work fighting political misinformation. But for the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11, many of them have prepared lists of moon-related debunks you just can’t miss. Now it’s your turn to check out the work of some of the International Fact-Checking Network’s verified signatories, and make sure that the information you’re consuming and spreading about the moon isn’t too out of this world.”
Collect Space: New website replays Apollo 11 first moon landing mission in real time. “With a single click, a new website can take you back 50 years and place you directly into the real-time action of the first moon landing mission. But if ‘Apollo 11 in Real Time’ creator Ben Feist has gotten it right, you will want to click many more times than just once.”
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