Earth's atmosphere stretches out to the moon – and beyond

The gaseous layer that wraps around Earth reaches up to 630,000 kilometers away, or 50 times the diameter of our planet, according to a new study based on observations by the ESA/NASA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, SOHO, ...

Lunar tunnel engineers excited by boring Moon colonies

As space agencies prepare to return humans to the Moon, top engineers are racing to design a tunnel boring machine capable of digging underground colonies for the first lunar inhabitants.

Has Earth's oxygen rusted the Moon for billions of years?

To the surprise of many planetary scientists, the oxidized iron mineral hematite has been discovered at high latitudes on the Moon, according to a study published today in Science Advances led by Shuai Li, assistant researcher ...

Simulations show lander exhaust could cloud studies of lunar ices

A new study led by scientists at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, shows that exhaust from a mid-sized lunar lander can quickly spread around the Moon and potentially contaminate scientifically ...

NASA launches robotic explorer to moon (Update)

NASA's newest robotic explorer rocketed into space late Friday in an unprecedented moonshot from Virginia that dazzled sky watchers along the East Coast of the U.S.

Astronomers Detect Sodium Gas Ejected by Lunar Impact

(PhysOrg.com) -- Boston University astronomers announced today observations of a cloud of sodium gas ejected from the Moon’s surface as a result of the NASA impact experiment that was part of its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter ...

Is there an atmosphere on the Moon?

(Phys.org) —Until recently, most everyone accepted the conventional wisdom that the moon has virtually no atmosphere. Just as the discovery of water on the moon transformed our textbook knowledge of Earth's nearest celestial ...

LADEE spacecraft finds neon in lunar atmosphere

The moon's thin atmosphere contains neon, a gas commonly used in electric signs on Earth because of its intense glow. While scientists have speculated on the presence of neon in the lunar atmosphere for decades, NASA's Lunar ...

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