Note: a BA hat tip to Larry Klaes for the heads-up on this one.
This is way cool: Ralph B. Roncoli of the Solar System Dynamics group at JPL has put together a document called Lunar Constants and Models Document. Sound boring? It’s anything but. Sure it’s loaded with numbers and tables and data only a major geek like me could love (did you know that “the latest lunar gravity field, LP150Q, is a 150th spherical harmonic degree and order model”? Me neither).
But it also has some very cool descriptions of our nearest cosmic neighbor. It talks about how the Moon’s orbit is changing (due to the influence of the Sun’s gravity), how lunar eclipses work, and how future astronauts can tell time on the Moon’s surface.
It also has fantastic images of the Moon. It has a relief and surface marking map of the nearside (here’s a taste, and you can even order a copy). My favorite, though is the link to this clickable, zoomable google-like map of the Moon.
You know, we’re going back to the Moon sometime pretty soon. This is a pretty handy thing to help pave the way.
October 10th, 2005 at 11:13 pm
“the latest lunar gravity field, LP150Q, is a 150th spherical harmonic degree and order model”
The latest?!?! What happened to the earlier ones. I miss those.
October 10th, 2005 at 11:14 pm
I’ll rather zoom onto areas in the moon than discuss a judge’s personal views. Alas, the judge’s comment may have more affect on me in the long term.
Now if only I can find that bit of land that I purchased on the moon years ago. If nasa builds on it, I’m going to charge them rent
din
October 11th, 2005 at 1:50 am
I love that topographic map of the far side of the moon on page 21. I’ve stuck it in my visual journal (and blogged about it)… I’m not sure Ralph Roncoli would have expected to inspire an embroidery project with the image!
P.S. I’ve read that Larry Niven story, too.
October 11th, 2005 at 8:37 am
Nice article, BA. I love that direct visual comparison of the Earth and the Moon (I’m just in the middle of re-reading Andrew Chaikin’s “A Man On The Moon” at the moment).
October 11th, 2005 at 9:26 am
I have an old copy of the NG map that is used for the zoom thing. The one thing I noticed about it which is kind of interesting…
The US lunar landings are all bunched relatively near the equator. The Soviet landings are mostly quite far off the equator.
It strikes me that it should be easier, both computationally and energy wise to travel to the moon, choose an orbit, and land near the equator than it would be to go far off the orbital plane. It makes me think that the Soviet technology was probably more advanced than the American technology of the period.
Perhaps someone more knowledgeable would like to comment? Is there a reason beyond “the Russians were showing off”? Or is it not really that much more difficult to orbit and land off the earth-moon orbital plane?
October 12th, 2005 at 4:54 am
Having recently seen a BBC dramatisation of the Space Race, I cannot believe the Russian technology was more advanced than the Apollo hardware. Although I suppose it depends what you mean by “advanced”.
In my understanding, all of the Russian missions to the moon were relatively small spacecraft (certainly nothing approaching the 20 or 30 tons of the Apollo CSM). Therefore, it was easier to choose whatever trajectory was desired for translunar injection. Apollo, on the other hand, would have required significantly more fuel to move from Earth orbit to a translunar trajectory that was anywhere other than near the equator. The Surveyor missions landed near the lunar equator because the Apollo missions would have to.
October 12th, 2005 at 8:37 am
Hmm… good points there.
October 14th, 2005 at 1:27 pm
I knew that clickable map looked familiar. It’s the one we use in the basic astronomy labs at Southwest Missouri State University (now Missouri State University).
I’ve lost track of how many labs I’ve TAed and had to help people find where the Apollo missions landed with that map…
October 14th, 2005 at 7:29 pm
I can’t find the United States flag.
http://www.moonmovie.com
.
October 24th, 2005 at 5:36 pm
I love the zoomable Moon. All the times I’ve looked at the Moon from my backyard and I never realized that it had all that writing on it.
January 10th, 2006 at 7:06 pm
Yep! That’s my cousin Ralph! He rawks!
He is the one real geek in our family! We are so proud of him!
Way to go Ralphie!
Also, thanks to Ralph, my entire family’s signatures have been scanned into the hard-drive of the Cassini project that’s been to Saturn–after 7 longs years of travel!