Cliffs discovered on the lunar crust indicate the distance between the moon’s center and surface shrank about 300 feet ......!

New images of the moon indicate it may be decreasing in size, NASA said this week.

Images taken by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) show there are relatively recently formed cliffs in the lunar crust indicating the moon shrank in the recent past and may still be doing so. The space agency introduced the images and discussed the discovery publicly on Thursday. It's shrinking because it's cooling down.


The scarps themselves are relatively small, with the largest being only about 300 feet high and extending for about several miles across small craters, according to NASA.


It’s the craters that have clued the agency in to their young age. Small craters on the moon’s surface don’t last long because it is constantly being hit with meteors that would destroy them on impact, the agency said.


Further, the scarps look relatively undegraded, also pointing to their young age, NASA said. The age of the scarps means that the moon could have been cooling and shrinking very recently.

So, NASA aims to use the LRO’s Narrow Angle Cameras to build a global map of the moon to identify additional scarps. Further research on them will try to determine if the Earth’s gravitational pull and tides are having any effect on them.



The Moon was hot at the beginning of its life. The most accepted theory—proved by simulations and analysis of its surface materials—is that it formed after a massive collision of a Mars-sized object with Earth, around 4.5 billion years ago. The material ejected in the impact accreted to form the Moon. After that, the lunar surface suffered a period of massive bombardment of asteroids and meteors, which combined with the decay of radioactive elements, kept it hot for a long while.


So long, in fact, that it's still probably cooling down today. Before, scientists believed the cooling and shrinking period ended early in its story. Now, new images by NASA's LRO show lobate scarps that are only one billion to one hundred million years old.


One of the remarkable aspects of the lunar scarps is their apparent young age. Relatively young, globally distributed thrust faults show recent contraction of the whole Moon, likely due to cooling of the lunar interior. [...] We can estimate these cliffs formed less than a billion years ago, and they could be as young as a hundred million years.


Lobate scarps—called that way because many of them appear to be lobe-shaped—form as inner parts of the moon collapse, forcing a section of the crust to crack and bulge out over another.


But how much has it shrunk? According to the data taken by the LRO, they believe the distance between the moon's center and its surface shrank about 300 feet in the last one billion years.

Hi, all astronomy fans, today we will be talking about a rather amazing question. I know that most of you probably have this question in mind which you have not solved the mystery until now. So do you know how do astronauts exactly go to the bathroom in space? You may ask yourself whether even the potty chair is in place? So today, I am here to clarify all your doubts.


SO, HOW DO ASTRONAUTS GO TO THE BATHROOM AND TAKE CARE OF OTHER PERSONAL HYGIENE?


Do you know that each Space Shuttle actually has a toilet that can be used by both men and women. It is also designed to be as much as possible like those on Earth, however, the big difference is that the units use flowing air (co..coo...cooling!) instead of water to move waste through the system.


So, solid wastes are actually being compressed and stored on-board, and then removed after the space shuttle has landed. Waste water is vented to space, although future systems may recycle it. The air is filtered to remove odor and bacteria and then returned to the cabin.


As for their hygience, astronauts can actually brush their teeth just like how they do on Earth. However, they will be stinky as there is no shower on the Shuttle, so astronauts must make do with sponge baths until they return home.


So here is some answers by the Offical NASA website on this question.
I. The Official NASA pages:
A. There is a nice space shuttle web page at: http://shuttle.nasa.gov/ Digging in there I found a Q&A Web page. Here's what it says: http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/reference/faq/living.html


6. How do you take a bath, brush your teeth, and go to the bathroom in space?


We do not have a bath or shower on the Shuttle, so we just wash off with wet washcloths, using soaps that you don't have to rinse off. When we brush our teeth, we can either swallow the toothpaste or spit it into a washcloth. Designing a toilet for zero-gravity is tougher. We use air flow to make the urine or feces go where we want, since gravity will not do it for us. You have to be more careful and think about what you are doing with the toilet in the Shuttle.




Resources:

• http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/970411a.html
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1wwzwvfsC0&feature=player_embedded#!

Once again, it's great to see all of you back here for more Astronomy news, interesting facts and more games!

So, in order to you to have a better understanding of the Mayans Astronomy, I had created an online crossword puzzle using EclipseCrossword software (it is a really good one!). This crossword puzzle is for you to learn the Mayans astronomy in a more interactive and interesting way. So please go to the following link for the crossword puzzle:

http://www2.hci.edu.sg/y09HCI0452/crosswordpuzzle(3).html

Mayans’ Universe


Mayans believed that the world was multi-layered consisting of thirteen levels of the heavens and nine layers of the underworld. The Earth is in the middle and belongs to both the heavens and underworlds.

Layer of heavens:
Description

Layer 1 (Earth)
A large wheel surrounded by the divine water, which is an ocean that extends to the horizon.


Layer 2 (Ilhuicatl metzli)
Moon and clouds reside here


Layer 3 (Citlalco)
Where the fixed stars lie. Also where Citlallicue ("She of the Starry Skirts") lives


Layer 4
Occupied by the Sun (Ilhuicatl Tonatiuh)


Layer 5
Occupied by Venus


Layer 6 (Ilhuicatl Mamalhuazocan)
Occupied by unidentified constellations. This layer is also where comets come from, and where the fire serpents attend to their duty of bringing the sun from the east to the zenith.


Layer 7
The black or green heaven, fierce with winds or storms


Layer 8
The blue heaven, where dust lies


Layer 9 (Itztapal Nanatzcayan)
Where Stone Slabs Crash Together


Layer 10
Represents White


Layer 11
Represents Yellow


Layer 12
Represents Red


Layer 13 (Omeyocan)
Where the dual male-female god, who created space and time, lives.

The nine-layered underworld was where the Milky Way was believed to be. Some Mayans believed that the Milky Way was a road of souls travelling to the underworld (scaring!?), while some, thought that it was the umbilical cord connecting heaven and the underworld to the Earth.

What the Mayans Were interested in?


The Mayans more interested in the:

The sun was associated with Tonatiuh , a red eagle with a large and all-seeing eye. The Mayans managed to calculate the times when the Sun would rise and set. They even determined the length of the solar year to be 365 days. A tropical year is actually 365.2422 days long! How close!


2. The Moon

However, do you know that actually small errors like 0.00059 days off in calculations can cause a calendar to be completely not accurate. A possible effect is that the calendar can be a month off every hundred years. But the Mayans continually update their records and predictions so that their calendar remains accurate throughout the generations.

Hi, all astronomy fans, good to see all of you back, now let us start on the Mayan culture Astronomy......!

Introduction:
Do you know that in the Mayans culture, astronomy was actually done by priests or "ilhuica tlamatilizmatini" ("the wise man who studies heaven"). All the observations were done, only using special buildings as reference points. The Mayans paired certain celestial bodies with a god and thus regard celestial events as an indication of their communication with these gods. Mayans also use to constellations or planets in the sky to indicate the planting season. This ensures that the Mayans will not starve. SMART!

So how did the Mayans exactly make observations in the sky? A common method called the Zenith passage of the Sun is used. Twice a year at noon the sun stands directly overhead in the tropics. The path in which the Sun takes then is called the Zenith passage. Mayans would place a column with exact vertical alignment to the Sun onto the ground or on the roof. When the Sun passes through the Zenith passage above this column, no shadows would be formed. Some Mayans also stay in Vertical Sighting, which are holes in the ground to observe the sky.



After observing, one definitely needs to calculate some figures. On the whole, these calculations were simply done by counting, for instance, the number of lunar revolutions in a certain time period. For more complex calculations, however, mathematics was used.

Hi, all astronomers! To start on the interesting Mayans astronomy, I had created a short introductory video for you to have at least a idea of what the Mayans Astronomy was like. This video was made with iMovie and this was aimed to give a short preview of the Astronomy in the Mayans times and how it worked. We wanted to make the video as informal as possible, giving it a more "movie-trailer" like effect to further enhance the attractiveness of our project. We got all of the pictures from the internet and added many special effects and even some music! Hope you enjoy our video!