The Apollo program, which ran from 1961 to 1972, reached its pinnacle on July 20, when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to set foot on the Moon. Their decisions regarding approach, technology, organisation and funding had an outsized influence on human spaceflight and continue to shape today’s space exploration efforts. The…
Skys that change color from deep blue near the horizon to white near it are often due to dust or suspended water particles in the air, or indicate higher humidity. As sunlight travels through our atmosphere, it interacts with air molecules which scatter its light like billiard balls – blue and violet wavelengths being scattered…
President Kennedy issued an ambitious challenge for Americans to reach the moon by 1961 and place two men on its surface. NASA achieved this goal in July 1969 when Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin became the first people ever to step foot onto its surface while Michael Collins orbited around it with Columbia Command…
Oceans help maintain our global climate by storing heat and moving water across its expanse, and they serve as home for numerous ecosystems. Ocean animals include sea mammals (whales, dolphins, otters, seals and sea lions), marine reptiles such as sea turtles and saltwater crocodiles as well as invertebrates such as jellyfish and shrimp. The Great…
At noontime, the sky appears blue due to molecules in the atmosphere scattering blue light more efficiently than red. At sunrise and sunset, however, its color changes to red due to light having made its journey through an extended path through our atmosphere. There are various explanations as to why the sky is blue; some…
Mars (Ares in Greek), the Roman god of war, is said to have been created from Juno and Jupiter, becoming his son and giving rise to Romulus and Remus – who later founded Rome. March is named in his honor. Egyptians were the first to notice that stars appeared fixed while the sun moved relative…
No doubt modern smartphones are far more powerful than the computers used on Apollo missions, yet such comparisons underplay the amazing technology employed by NASA during these missions to get us there. MIT-designed Apollo Guidance Computer was crashproof, operating according to a hierarchical system which allocated energy based on program importance; this allowed energy distribution…
Sir James Jeans was a British physicist and astronomer known for his popular science books. His talent lay in translating difficult scientific subjects into easily understandable language for popular readers. The sky appears blue because shorter wavelengths like violet and blue light scatter more readily than red wavelengths from air molecules and particles – this…
On the third EVA, Cernan and Schmitt drove to Van Serg crater where they collected house-sized rock, took gravimeter readings, deployed more experiments, but ran out of both water and oxygen and had to retreat back to LM. Once inside, they relaxed. However, upon closer inspection they saw that the amount of sunlit land on…
