Lunar Composition Examined By X-Ray

whovian writes "Chandra, the x-ray observatory launched by NASA in 1999, is being used to study the composition of Earth's moon, perhaps putting an end to the age-old question, "Is the moon really made out of cheese?" 'Nuff said. The original press release is starting to get noticed here(1), here(2) and here(3). A neat idea, if you ask me, but will this postpone any manned lunar missions?"

postpone manned missions?!

[m00by]

good god man, they're not taking a huge honking X-ray of the moon, chandra uses the background X-ray radiation in the universe as it's "X-ray" and it focuses that into useful data. it's a passive x-ray, not an active scan :)

Re:postpone manned missions?!

[bhima]

But how else could they tell if it was Swiss cheese and had holes!

Re:postpone manned missions?!

[m00by]

I'm not doubting the usefulness. =D I'm merely saying that there is enough background radiation in space that chandra can tell if the moon is swiss cheese, or gouda, a smoked cheddar, or perhaps a brie. whatever kind of cheese it is, there's enough zap floating to and fro in the infinite expanses to let us see that with our x-ray specs known as chandra =D

Manned Mission Should only be used if Necessary

[bhima]

Honestly I like the of space travel as much as anyone but manned missions should be limited to those which require people. Otherwise let unmanned missions send data. I wonder how pathfinder missions could performed instead of one failed shuttle mission. (Including the effects of bad press).

But I'd rather see a space elevator than anything these days (short of a manned Mars Mission of course!)

Re:Manned Mission Should only be used if Necessary

[Oddly_Drac]

"Honestly I like the of space travel as much as anyone but manned missions should be limited to those which require people."

As opposed to the manned missions that don't require people?

"Otherwise let unmanned missions send data."

Exactly the conclusion congress reached at the end of the Apollo programme.

The problem was that people tend to view that as the reason not to go back to the moon.

Will it delay moon missions?

[AllUsernamesAreGone]

Unless the results indicate that the moon is actually a hollow sphere inhabited by brain-devouring alients, probably not.

"Dark side" of the moon

[Burb]

Bit disappointing that the SciAm reference talks about the "dark side" of the moon. There's no such thing - although it's a lot snappier than "the bit of the moon we never see from Earth".

Re:"Dark side" of the moon

[barakn]

What about the "far side" of the moon? Short, simple, accurate.

Re:"Dark side" of the moon

[M1FCJ]

Oh come on... It's because they listen to Pink Floyd a lot.

Re:"Dark side" of the moon

[troemyd]

.....they listen to Pink Floyd a lot.

Anyone who listens to Pink Floyd a lot will know that the is no dark side of the moon - 'matter of fact, it's all dark'.

Manned Mission

[mchappee]

"A neat idea, if you ask me, but will this postpone any manned lunar missions?"

Not if it finds something good in there.

Matthew

Disappointed?

[barakn]

You may have noticed the extremely low resolution of the images produced by Chandra. In fact, other craft have gotten much better pictures of elemental compositions of the lunar surface, especially common elements like titanium and iron. For instance, Galileo returned this [nasa.gov] and Clementine [usra.edu] (some very high res images here) returned this iron map [usra.edu] and this titanium map [usra.edu].

Chandra detected magnesium, silicon, aluminum, and oxygen, but its already known that the lunar highlands are composed mostly of anorthosite, a rock which contains all of those elements but magnesium (I would like to know why magnesium and not calcium was detected). This is more of a proof-of-concept than anything. The most important information to come from these first observations is the discounting of the anomolous farside x-ray emissions.

Re:Disappointed?

[ZerroDefex]

Whoo, look at all that metal. Hand me my pickaxe, I'm going to the Moon!

Postponing Lunar Missions.

[Dausha]

but will this postpone any manned lunar missions? (Emphasis mine)

Nope, the current X-Ray survey of the Lunar surface will not affect any of the Apollo Lunar missions. The last one was over thirty years ago.

It won't postpone any manned lunar missions...

[mraymer]

But, at least in the United States, lack of public interest and the cost will. I think space.com's article on why we need a space program [space.com] was very insightful.

I also think that this is one those times where my sig fits in nicely.

2001...

[Spudley]

Okay, so they're doing this a couple of years later than Arthur C Clarke predicted, but the big question is: Did they find the monolinth yet?

D'ohl found the Monolinux!

[leonbrooks]

"My God, it's full of money!", he said, shortly before going insane [barbneal.com] with greed [barbneal.com].

Linux/Lunar -- oops!

[RobertB-DC]

Karma to burn on an off-topic post... did anyone else read "Lunar Composition Examined By X-Ray" as:

Linux Composition Examined By X-Ray

and think it was a story about yet another attempt to find out what code SCO thinks they have a right to charge for?

-1, Offtopic; -1, Redundant; -1, Cliche [slashdot.org]... but I just had to say it.

Ok.. Mod me down.

[linuxrunner]

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