moon

The moon may be a harsh mistress, but lately she has been giving up her secrets. Scientists have spotted a deep hole in the lunar surface that goes at least 260 feet down and is believed to open into an underground tunnel more than 1,200 feet wide.

The discovery is powerful evidence for long, winding tunnels carved by lava beneath the lunar surface. Such tunnels, whose existence has long been hypothesized, could provide shelter for future astronauts or colonists against the harsh radiation and surface temperatures on the moon.

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Robots have finally risen to meet NASA's moon dirt digging competition after three years of failure. Three robotics teams took away a total of $750,000 in prize money by proving they could dig at least 330 pounds of simulated lunar regolith within half an hour.

The first place robot alone excavated 1,103 pounds of dirt and deposited it in a container within the time limit. Competitors not only had to dig out the sticky regolith grains, but also had to be light enough to meet a weight restriction of no more than 176 pounds.

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We waited, we watched, and for the most part, we were disappointed. But the lack of visual fireworks during last week's "moon bombing" doesn't mean the mission was a scientific dud. Though the empty Centaur rocket stage that crashed near the moon's south pole didn't throw a massive plume of lunar debris up into the sunlight as researchers wanted, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter snapped some images of the crash site that shed some light on the situation anyhow.

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Water bears, the tiny creatures that have already been proven to survive direct exposure to the vacuum of space, were slated for launch to a Martian moon this month. But Russian officials chose to delay their first interplanetary mission in more than a decade due to safety and technical issues, until the next launch window opens in 2011.

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NASA's double sledgehammer shot to the moon succeeded early this morning when an empty rocket stage and a lunar probe each crashed into separate craters. But the host of telescopes and other instruments pointed at the impact sites did not immediately spot huge plumes of lunar debris.

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The harvest moon--which came a couple weeks late this year, on Oct. 4--has long allowed farmers to gather their crops late into the night, using moonlight as a beacon.

Someday, the moon might yield a harvest of its own, thanks to a natural supply of water. A NASA probe is set to crash into the moon this week in search of that potential bounty. Here's how you can watch it from here on Earth.

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Fancy yourself a sharpshooter at laser tag? The team at Goddard Space Flight Center might just have you beat. After all, since launching the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, they've been firing a laser across 250,000 miles of space, hitting the minivan-sized LRO as it orbits the moon at nearly 3,600 miles per hour. It's no lucky shot either; they do it 28 times per second.

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Although science news is often muddied by qualifiers, the news today is clear. After decades of believing that the moon was a dry, dusty wasteland, we now know that there is water on the moon's surface. This discovery means that colonizing the moon could be a bit easier, since water could be used to produce oxygen and fuel, not to mention a delicious glass of refreshment.

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Robert Heinlein got it right when he dubbed Earth's moon a harsh mistress. NASA's lunar orbiter examined some craters near the lunar south pole that never see sunlight, and may actually represent the coldest places in the solar system -- not to mention reservoirs of precious water ice.

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has conducted an ongoing survey of temperatures on the moon's surface through its Diviner Lunar Radiometer Experiment. The temperatures in the craters can dip as low as -397 degrees F, the lowest temperatures recorded anywhere in the solar system.

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