11 june 2002: millions enjoy eclipse spectacle
Parts of eastern Asia and central America have witnessed an annular solar eclipse. Similar to a total eclipse, the Moon is slightly further away than average, so the Sun appears as a "ring of fire" around the Moon.
Full story from BBC News
5 june 2002: european space programme to include moon mission
The European Space Agency has announced its plans for the remainder is this decade. Although budgetary constraints have resulted in some project casualties, the programme will include the Smart 1 mission to survey the Moon and test new technologies.
Full story from BBC News
22 may 2002: still more moons for jupiter
The prodigious team led by Scott Sheppard and David Jewitt of the University of Hawaii's Institute for Astronomy have announced the discovery of another 11 irregular satellites orbiting Jupiter. This brings the total to 39, reinforcing Jupiter's status as having the largest number of moons in the solar system.
Full story from BBC News
1 april 2002: chinese space capsule returns
China's latest unmanned spacecraft, Shenzhou III, has returned to Earth after it's week-long mission. China aims to launch a manned mission by 2005, and to put a man on the Moon by 2010. However, the success of the mission, which carried a dummy covered in sensors to monitor onboard life support systems, has prompted speculation that the timescales could be shortened dramatically.
Full story from BBC News
25 march 2002: china launches space capsule
China has launched a prototype man-rated space capsule. The Shenzhou III mission lifted off from Jiuquan Space Launch Centre on a Long March 2F rocket, watched by Chinese President Jiang Zemin. China aims to be the third nation to put astronauts - or "Taikonauts" - into space, and eventually intends to land a man on the Moon.
Full story from BBC News
16 january 2002: measuring the moon
Scientists have already measured the distance between the Earth and the Moon down to about two centimetres. Now a US research team hopes to use laser ranging to narrow the measurement down to the millimetre. Together with highly sensitive gravity experiments, it is hoped that the five year project will help resolve some fundamental issues in cosmology.
Full story from BBC News
5 december 2001: lunar leonids strike again
Apart from some spectacular meteor displays, this month's Leonid meteor shower has also given observers an opportunity to witness another phenomenon: a lunar impact. The first confirmed sightings of objects striking the Moon were in 1999 - again during the Leonid meteor shower - when seven flashes recorded on video were matched with independent observations. This year a further two impacts have so far been confirmed as observers review their video tapes.
Full story from Sky & Telescope
15 november 2001: moon sightings split ramadan start
Muslims in Britain and around the world will be starting the religious fasting period of Ramadan on different days. The holy month begins when the crescent moon is first sighted from Mecca, but while some Muslims will wait for word of the actual sighting to be relayed, others use astronomically calculated dates instead.
Full story from BBC News
19 october 2001: lunar soil reveals solar secrets
New analyses of lunar soil samples returned by the Apollo missions have provided an insight into both the impact model for the origin of the Moon and the nature of the Sun's atmospheric processes. Comparison of the abundance of different oxygen isotopes in lunar and terrestrial soils, coupled with recent computer simulations of the massive collision which formed the Moon, suggest that the Mars-sized body which struck the proto-Earth had a similar composition and had therefore formed in the same region of the solar system. Meanwhile, an analysis of levels of beryllium-10 suggests that it is being formed in the outer layers of the Sun and continually carried to the Moon in the solar wind.
Full story from Sky & Telescope and BBC News
19 september 2001: lost moon-landing tape found
Pressure from Kipp Teague, creator of the Project Apollo Archive, has resulted in the rediscovery of a dramatic sound recording of the last minutes of Apollo 11's descent to the lunar surface. The tape, which was found in very poor condition at NASA's space centre in Houston, features the voices of Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and flight controller Gene Krantz.
Full story from BBC News
15 august 2001: how the moon was made
US researchers have developed a computer simulation - the most sophisticated yet - of the formation of the Moon. Based on the impact of a Mars-sized body with the early Earth, the simulation produces a good match with the current orbits and compositions of the Earth and Moon. Compared with earlier models, it indicates a larger proto-Earth, a smaller impacting planet, and a more recent collision - some 4.5 billion years ago.
Full story from BBC News
21 june 2001: african eclipse: a treat for scientists
Eclipse hunters from all over the world have converged on Africa to witness the first total solar eclipse of the new millennium. Wildlife enthusiasts have studied the effects on birds and animals, and solar scientists have enjoyed fine views of the Sun's corona, enhanced by the current period of high solar activity.
Full story from BBC News
26 may 2001: space tourists ready to dig deep
Following millionaire Dennis Tito's trip into space on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, a survey has revealed that 76% of people are interested in the idea of a holiday in space, and over a third would like to visit the Moon.
Full story from BBC News
25 may 2001: sahara yields more rare meteorites
Finds by meteorite hunters in Africa have increased the number of known lunar finds to 23. Many of them, although found at different times, have been found to belong to the same falls as others.
Full story from Sky & Telescope
21 april 2001: earthshine shedding light on earth's climate
Astronomers are planning to watch the Moon in order to monitor Earth's climate. The faint glow of the Moon's dark side at crescent phase is caused by sunlight reflected from the Earth's atmosphere. Any radiation that isn't reflected is absorbed; thus when the Earth isn't as reflective, it must be getting warmer.
Full story from Sky & Telescope
9 april 2001: mars and moon rocks discovered
Two rare meteorites from the Moon and Mars have been recovered in northwest Africa. The lump of Moon rock, weighing in at about one kilogram (2.2 pounds), is thought to be the second largest Moon meteorite ever found. If the Martian and lunar origins are verified, the rocks will be of considerable interest to scientists. About 20,000 space rocks are estimated to land on this planet every year but very few hail from the Moon or Mars.
Full story from BBC News
15 march 2001: an eyewitness impact debunked
In 1976 geologist Jack B. Hartung proposed that a passage from the chronicles of medieval monk Gervase of Canterbury describes the creation of Giordano Bruno, a crater near the Moon's northeast limb. It proved difficult to confirm or refute, but now a new analysis demonstrates that a cratering event could not have happened in 1178. The fragments ejected by the impact would likely have showered Earth with a trillion bright meteors during the days that followed, yet no mention of such apocalyptic displays appears in the chronicles of the era.
Full story from Sky & Telescope
10 january 2001: total eclipse of the moon
Millions of skywatchers have seen the first total eclipse of the Moon of the 21st Century. Astronomers gathered to watch the Moon slip into darkness in the clearest view of a lunar eclipse in a decade. For those with clear skies, the eclipse was visible to the naked eye from 18:42 GMT, when the Moon first began moving into the Earth's shadow.
Full story from BBC News plus pictorial feature
30 december 2000: top honour for patrick moore
Patrick Moore, the man who has done more than any other to raise the profile of astronomy among the British general public, is to get a knighthood from the Queen. "If I have made a contribution, I am delighted," said Moore, the presenter of the Sky At Night programme on BBC Television and prominent lunar astronomy specialist. He was made an OBE in 1968 and a CBE in 1988, and will now get the new, higher honour "for services to the popularisation of science and to broadcasting".
Full story from BBC News
25 december 2000: christmas eclipsed in north america
North and Central Americans have had their Christmas enlivened by a dramatic event: a partial solar eclipse. The Moon passed across the Sun, covering as much as 70% of the solar disc when viewed from remote Arctic areas of Canada. But the partial eclipse was visible over a much wider area, in all but Alaska and western Canada and as far south as Honduras and El Salvador. The last Christmas solar eclipse happened in 1954, and astronomers say that there will not be another until 2307.
Full story from BBC News
30 november 2000: lunar meteorites reveal life's troubles
A new study of Moon meteorites provides fresh evidence that the Earth and its satellite underwent an intense period of cosmic bombardment just under four billion years ago. An analysis of four of the 20 or so known lunar meteorites suggests that the Moon's surface was melted by a torrent of impacts which lasted only about 200,000 years but formed nearly 2,000 large craters and many of the Moon's giant impact basins. Scientists say that the Earth would have been bombarded to a far greater extent, possibly delaying the emergence of life.
Full story from BBC News
16 october 2000: oldest lunar calendar identified
What could be the oldest lunar calendar ever created has been identified on the walls of the famous, prehistoric caves at Lascaux in France. The interpretation that symbolic paintings, dating back 15,000 years, show the Moon going through its different phases comes from a German researcher who has previously associated patterns left in the caves with familiar stars and constellations. He now says groups of dots and squares painted among representations of bulls, antelope and horses depict the 29-day cycle of the Earth's satellite.
Full story from BBC News
5 october 2000: rocks reveal ancient tides
The Earth's oceans were being tugged by tides more than three billion years ago, according to an analysis of rocks in South Africa. The sandstone and shale deposits, which were found in the Moodies group of hills, have markings that scientists say were made by the ebb and flow of waters moving along a continental shoreline. The study proves that the Moon was orbiting the Earth in a roughly similar orbit to the one it occupies today.
Full story from BBC News
13 june 2000: lights glow on moon
New evidence shows that the Moon is not a totally dead world as was thought by many astronomers. It does still occasionally stir with activity. Even though they have been reported from time to time for hundreds of years, claims of changes on the lunar surface have always been controversial. Many scientists have dismissed the occasional reported sightings of glows and mists hanging over certain lunar features. Now a French astronomer has obtained some of the best evidence yet that occasionally something does disturb the lunar surface.
Full story from BBC News
10 may 2000: firm offers moon burial
The ultimate in peaceful final resting places may now be within reach as a US company is offering a burial service on the Moon. Texas-based Celestis has already sent the remains of 100 people into Earth orbit, but now claims it will drop ashes on to the lunar surface. The company says it is negotiating with commercial firms who are planning missions to the Moon. These may occur in the next two or three years and the ashes would be carried on board as cargo.
Full story from BBC News
16 february 2000: moon's orbit betrays its violent birth
The mysterious tilt of the Moon's orbit around the Earth is probably due to the satellite's violent origin, say scientists writing in the current issue of the journal Nature. A team of researchers from the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Colorado, US, have used a computer model to trace the Moon's orbit back in time. The study suggests that the gravitational interaction between the forming Moon and the disk of debris from which it emerged was responsible for putting the body in its present orbit.
Full story from BBC News
20 january 2000: once in a red moon event
The lunar eclipse visible on Friday morning promises to be particularly spectacular as events on earth and space conspire to produce a blood red moon. Sunlight from a lunar eclipse filters through dust in the earth's atmosphere to give the moon an eerie red glow, but this year it promises to be a particularly vivid colour. The eclipse should be visible from 0301 GMT, when the Moon enters the Earth's shadow. Low in the western sky, the Moon will gradually darken until totality occurs between 0405 GMT and 0522 GMT.
Full story from BBC News
22 december 1999: brightest moon for decades
At 2100 GMT, the full moon occurred within hours of perigee (the Moon's nearest point to us in its orbit around Earth). It was also within days of perihelion (when the Earth is at its closest to the Sun), so that the sunlight reflected by the Moon was stronger than in the summer. All this coinciding with the day of the winter solstice, the longest night of the year in the Northern Hemisphere, when the Moon is at its highest point in the sky. The combined effect meant that the Earth's satellite appeared about 14% bigger and about 20% brighter than normal. But full moons in 1893, 1912, and 1930 were more brilliant, as will be one in 2052.
Full story from BBC News plus pictorial feature and Sky & Telescope
22 december 1999: lunar surface change: a false alarm
Two months ago it appeared that the Clementine spacecraft had obtained convincing confirmation of a spontaneous brightening on the Moon, called a transient lunar phenomenon (TLP), originally reported by telescopic observers on April 23, 1994. However, what at first appeared to be vindication for TLP observers has proved to be a false alarm. Once the images were carefully corrected for lighting geometry and other effects, the colour difference went away.
Full story from Sky & Telescope
26 november 1999: lunar link to volcanic past
French scientists have put forward an intriguing new theory for what caused catastrophic volcanic activity on our planet hundreds of millions of years ago, which led to the rise of the dinosaurs. Researchers from Paris and Strasbourg say the moon, already known to generate tides in the ocean, could have had a much greater impact on the Earth's early history than was previously thought. They suggest that three times in the history of life on Earth, the Moon, together with the Sun, caused oscillations in inside of the Earth which could account for some of Earth's more dramatic geological events, such as the splitting of continents and oceans.
Full story from BBC News
23 november 1999: leonid strikes the moon
Astronomers think they have witnessed a meteor striking the Moon, which may be the first such confirmed observation. Brian Cudnik from Houston, Texas, captured the event during last week's Leonid meteor storm. He saw a brief flash near the centre of the Moon's dark side at about 0446 GMT, which he estimated was at least as bright as some nearby stars. Astronomer David Dunham, observing near Washington DC, made a video recording of the event. Astronomers are now appealing for anyone else who may have seen the event to come forward.
Full story from BBC News
15 october 1999: evidence of transient lunar phenomena
The first unambiguous confirmation of a spontaneous change in a feature on the Moon has been reported. Amateur observers have claimed to witness dozens of transient lunar phenomena (TLPs) for decades, but most professionals found the reports unconvincing because the events were almost always seen only visually. Now, however, a group has found "before" and "after" images from the Clementine spacecraft for an TLP reported last April 23rd. The area in question, the "cobra head" at the beginning of Schröter's Valley near the crater Aristarchus, has often been the location of TLP sightings.
Full story from Sky and Telescope and BBC News
13 october 1999: no ice detected after lunar smash
The controlled crash of NASA's Lunar Prospector spacecraft on the Moon did not throw up any signs of water. Scientists reached this conclusion after digging through extensive data from Earth- and space-based observatories. The daring experiment, which destroyed the spacecraft, took place when the probe had reached the end of its useful life.
Full story from BBC News
24 august 1999: eclipse shadow unveils scientific mysteries
The drama is over and the Moon has passed over the Sun, but for scientists the work is just beginning. From the UK to India, they harnessed the darkness of the August 99 total solar eclipse to try to solve mysteries about the Sun and its effect on the Earth, generating masses of data which must now be interpreted. How solar storms strike the Earth and knock out satellites, why the Sun's atmosphere is much hotter than its surface and how the Sun's heat drives the Earth's climate are just some of the questions the researchers are asking.
Full story from BBC News
11 august 1999: millions watch last solar eclipse of the millennium
Despite disappointing weather conditions on many parts of its track across Europe and Asia, the great eclipse of 1999 has filled many millions with a sense of wonder.
Full story from BBC News plus special feature
20 july 1999: frustration on moonwalk anniversary
The 30th anniversary of the first landing on the Moon has been marked by the launch of an X-ray telescope on the space shuttle Columbia, and new revelations about the Apollo 11 mission. But it has also prompted many expressions of regret that the Apollo missions have not been followed by others.
Full story from BBC News
20 july 1999: apollo moon experiment still working
An experiment left on the lunar surface 30 years ago by the Apollo 11 astronauts still continues to return valuable data about the Moon. The lunar laser ranging reflector is used to determine the round-trip travel time of a laser pulse from the Earth to the Moon and back again, thereby calculating the distance between the two with incredible accuracy. The data gathered has shown us that the Moon is receding from the Earth at about 3.8 centimetres (1.5 inches) every year. It has also measured minute changes in the shape of the Earth as landmasses gradually change after being compressed by the great weight of the glaciers in the last Ice Age.
Full story from BBC News
9 june 1999: moon's tail spotted
A tail of sodium gas that streams out for distances of at least 800,000 kilometres (500,000 miles) behind the Moon has been observed better than ever before. The new observations were made on the nights following the Leonid meteor shower of November 1998. The sodium atoms were blasted into space as tiny meteorites struck the lunar soil, it is believed.
Full story from BBC News and Sky & Telescope
3 june 1999: radar finds moon's cold spots
The first three-dimensional images of the Moon's poles have taken using radar. The observations reveal deep craters in permanent shadow that could potentially contain water ice. The south pole appears particularly suitable. The new data will be vital in selecting and hitting a target for the crash landing of the orbiting Lunar Prospector spacecraft on 31 July. It is hoped to blast water vapour high enough out of a crater for observatories to confirm its presence.
Full story from BBC News
7 january 1999: "moon illusion" explanation confirmed
A full Moon, seen close to the horizon, seems huge. However, once it climbs high in the sky it seems to "shrink" to normal size. Such perceptions - dubbed the "Moon illusion" - have been recognized since the Greek astronomer Ptolemy as early as the second century A.D. Eighteen centuries later, a father and son team of researchers put the illusion to the test and essentially confirmed what Ptolemy concluded: that the illusion arises because seeing an object across miles of "filled space" makes it look farther, bigger, and more impressive than when there are no visual cues to its great distance.
Full story from BBC News and IBM research
3 june 1999: prospector probe to be crashed
NASA has announced that its Lunar Prospector probe will end its mission in a blaze of glory by crashing into the lunar surface. It will impact with a force equivalent of a large car crashing at 1100 miles per hour. In the process, scientists hope to conclusively prove what the probe was sent to investigate: that large reserves of water ice exist on the Moon. NASA acknowledges that the chances of success are small, as the low orbit and shallow angle of descent will make it difficult to target a specific impact point.
Full story from BBC News
22 april 1999: prehistoric moon map discovered
A neolithic map of the Moon has been discovered which predates the oldest previously known lunar map by 4500 years. The map, which is carved into a rock in the prehistoric tombs at Knowth in County Meath, Ireland, was found by Dr Philip Stooke of the University of Western Ontario, Canada. He found it on a rock, originally named Orthostat 47, which had been excavated from the major neolithic burial site. The relationship between the shallow series of carved arcs and the Moon is not immediately apparent to the untrained eye as the circular limb is not shown, but this may have been drawn or painted on with materials which have subsequently worn away.
Full story from BBC News
24 march 1999: probe reveals lunar core
The "Grazing Impact" theory of lunar formation has been given a further boost by the latest data from NASA's Lunar Prospector probe. Scientists have reported that the Moon's iron core has a radius of between 140 and 280 miles (220 and 450 km), and contains around 4% of the satellite's total mass. This is a tiny figure when compared with the Earth's core, which represent some 30% of the planetary mass.
Full story from BBC News