Far side of the moon filmed by Nasa

This amazing video has been publish by Nasa this week:



This images shows the dark side of the moon, an area of the moon that due to the rotational movement of the moon and the Earth couldn´t be observed.

But one of the twin GRAIL spacecraft launched by Nasa last September has returned its first video of the Moon's hidden side.

This video and all the data collected had been use to reconstruct a topographic map of the dark and unknown area wich is the dark side as haven´t done before.

The images show a more leaky than the visible part because it recives more impacts. In adition, we could observe the Drygalski crater, wich have acurious star form inside. This crater can be seen in the second 29 of the video in the bottom right side.

At end, an amzing image from dark side:

VIa: NASA

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Lunar eclipse

Today, a great number of people had seen how the last lunar eclipse from the year transforms the moon in a huge red ball as seen in the image:



This eclipse, the last of the year, could only be observed from Australia, Asia and north-east Ameica.

Luckly, lots of web pages such as AstronomyLive had retransmitted it so people from all the world could saw it.

I expected alll of you had been delighted with this magnific astronomicall event wich would not be repited until 2014.

Via: ABC

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New satellite to test Albert Einstein's theories

Next January, a new satellite aiming to test General Relativity Theory will be launched from the Kourou -French Guyana- on board the brand new European designed Vega rocket. It will be indeed Vega's maiden flight. This satellite, called LARES (Laser Relativity Satellite) has been developed by the Italian Space Agency and it is completely passive -it has no sensors inside. It is a tungsten sphere covered with 92 retroreflectors, which are used to measure the time light needs reach the Earth again with an awesome accuracy and with the help of the laser stations located around the globe belonging to the International Laser Ranging Service. Though the ball's diameter is only 36 centimetres long, it weighs nearly 400 kg. This program was also intended to measure the braneworld DGP model as well as to get an orders-of-magnitude improvement of the current limits in the equivalence principle. Unfortunately, these goals were later dismissed due to their complexity.

The measure of the Lense-Thirring effect (also known as frame dragging) describes the distortion caused by the rotation of a body -here, the Earth. Previous tests to measure this effect were launched in 1976 and 1972. Called LAGEOS and LAGEOS 2 they were made of alluminium in order to reduce the effect of the Earth's Magnetic Field by an italoamerican colaboration and they are still today working. These satellites provided an accuracy of a 10% and according to the designer of the LARES, his satellite will get an accuracy of a 1%, but this has been harshly called into question.

Via: ASI

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