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Descartes (crater)
Descartes is a heavily worn lunar impact crater that is located in the rugged south-central highlands of the Moon. To the southwest is the crater Abulfeda. It is named after the French philosopher, mathematician and physicist René Descartes. The rim of Descartes survives only in stretches, and is completely missing in the north. The crater Descartes A lies across the southwest rim. The interior floor contains several curved ridges. These are concentric with the surviving outer walls to the northwest and southeast. A section of the outer rim of Descartes is covered by a region that has a higher albedo than the surrounding surface. Low-altitude measurements by the Lunar Prospector showed that this patch is actually a magnetic anomaly—the strongest on the near side of the Moon. This magnetic field may be deflecting particles from the solar wind, and thus preventing the underlying surface from growing darker because of space weathering. This is similar to the process c ...
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Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) is a NASA robotic spacecraft currently orbiting the Moon in an eccentric polar mapping orbit. Data collected by LRO have been described as essential for planning NASA's future human and robotic missions to the Moon. Its detailed mapping program is identifying safe landing sites, locating potential resources on the Moon, characterizing the radiation environment, and demonstrating new technologies. Launched on June 18, 2009, in conjunction with the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS), as the vanguard of NASA's Lunar Precursor Robotic Program, LRO was the first United States mission to the Moon in over ten years. LRO and LCROSS were launched as part of the United States's Vision for Space Exploration program. The probe has made a 3-D map of the Moon's surface at 100-meter resolution and 98.2% coverage (excluding polar areas in deep shadow), including 0.5-meter resolution images of Apollo landing sites. The first images f ...
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Magnetism
Magnetism is the class of physical attributes that are mediated by a magnetic field, which refers to the capacity to induce attractive and repulsive phenomena in other entities. Electric currents and the magnetic moments of elementary particles give rise to a magnetic field, which acts on other currents and magnetic moments. Magnetism is one aspect of the combined phenomena of electromagnetism. The most familiar effects occur in ferromagnetic materials, which are strongly attracted by magnetic fields and can be magnetized to become permanent magnets, producing magnetic fields themselves. Demagnetizing a magnet is also possible. Only a few substances are ferromagnetic; the most common ones are iron, cobalt, and nickel and their alloys. The rare-earth metals neodymium and samarium are less common examples. The prefix ' refers to iron because permanent magnetism was first observed in lodestone, a form of natural iron ore called magnetite, Fe3O4. All substances exhibit some type of ...
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Kalmbach Books
Kalmbach Media (formerly Kalmbach Publishing Co.) is an American publisher of books and magazines, many of them railroad-related, located in Waukesha, Wisconsin. History The company's first publication was ''The Model Railroader'', which began publication in the summer of 1933 with a cover date of January 1934. A press release announcing the magazine appeared in August 1933, but did not receive much interest. In 1940, business was good enough for Kalmbach to launch another magazine about railroads in general with the simple title of ''Trains Magazine''. From its first issue dated November 1940, it grew quickly from an initial circulation of just over 5,000. Kalmbach became exclusively a publisher when it discontinued its printing operations in 1973, opting to contract production from other printers. In 1985, Kalmbach purchased AstroMedia Corporation, adding its four magazines: ''Astronomy'', ''Deep Sky'', the children's science magazine ''Odyssey'' and ''Telescope Making'' ...
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Sterling Publishing Co
Sterling Publishing Company, Inc. is a publisher of a broad range of subject areas, with multiple imprints and more than 5,000 titles in print. Founded in 1949 by David A. Boehm, Sterling also publishes books for a number of brands, including AARP, Hasbro, Hearst Magazines, and ''USA TODAY'', as well as serves as the North American distributor for domestic and international publishers including: Anova, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Carlton Books, Duncan Baird, Guild of Master Craftsmen, the Orion Publishing Group, and Sixth & Spring Books. Sterling also owns and operates two verticals, Lark Crafts and Pixiq. Sterling Publishing is a wholly owned subsidiary of Barnes & Noble, which acquired it in 2003. On January 5, 2012, ''The Wall Street Journal'' reported that Barnes & Noble had put its Sterling Publishing business up for sale. Negotiations failed to produce a buyer, however, and Sterling is reportedly no longer for sale as of March, 2012. In January 2022, Sterling rebranded ...
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Jonathan's Space Report
''Jonathan's Space Report'' (JSR) is a newsletter about the Space Age, hosted at Jonathan's Space Page. It is written by Jonathan McDowell, a Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian astrophysicist. It is updated as McDowell's schedule permits, but he tries to publish two issues each month. Originally the website was hosted on a Harvard University account, but was moved in late 2003 to a dedicated domain. Started in 1989, the newsletter reports on recent space launches, International Space Station activities and space craft developments. McDowell's report occasionally corrects NASA's official web sites, or provides additional data on classified launches that aren't available elsewhere. Associated projects on the JSR web site are: * A catalog of all known geosynchronous satellites and their current positions * A listing of satellite launch attempts * A cross-reference between catalog number and international designation of artificial satellites McDowell has long campaigne ...
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Cambridge University Press
Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII of England, King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press A university press is an academic publishing house specializing in monographs and scholarly journals. Most are nonprofit organizations and an integral component of a large research university. They publish work that has been reviewed by schola ... in the world. It is also the King's Printer. Cambridge University Press is a department of the University of Cambridge and is both an academic and educational publisher. It became part of Cambridge University Press & Assessment, following a merger with Cambridge Assessment in 2021. With a global sales presence, publishing hubs, and offices in more than 40 Country, countries, it publishes over 50,000 titles by authors from over 100 countries. Its publishing includes more than 380 academic journals, monographs, reference works, school and uni ...
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Descartes Highlands
The Descartes Highlands is an area of lunar highlands located on the near side that served as the landing site of the American Apollo 16 mission in early 1972. The Descartes Highlands is located in the area surrounding Descartes crater, after which the feature received its name. Geology Two major formations dominate the Descartes Highlands area: the Cayley plains and the Descartes formation. The latter is composed primarily of highland plateau material, perhaps debris from large impact events—specifically the impact that formed Mare Nectaris. North Ray and South Ray craters, the former sampled directly by the Apollo 16 crew, revealed a layering sequence, possibly an overlap of the Cayley and Descartes formations. The area of the Descartes Highlands is characterized by an undulating landscape covered with old and some new, sharp rimmed craters. Based upon findings during the Apollo 16 mission, some of the floors of these craters were covered with glass similar to that found a ...
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Apollo 16
Apollo 16 (April 1627, 1972) was the tenth crewed mission in the United States Apollo space program, administered by NASA, and the fifth and penultimate to land on the Moon. It was the second of Apollo's " J missions", with an extended stay on the lunar surface, a focus on science, and the use of the Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV). The landing and exploration were in the Descartes Highlands, a site chosen because some scientists expected it to be an area formed by volcanic action, though this proved to not be the case. The mission was crewed by Commander John Young, Lunar Module Pilot Charles Duke and Command Module Pilot Ken Mattingly. Launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on April 16, 1972, Apollo 16 experienced a number of minor glitches en route to the Moon. These culminated with a problem with the spaceship's main engine that resulted in a six-hour delay in the Moon landing as NASA managers contemplated having the astronauts abort the mission and return to E ...
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Mare Ingenii
Mare Ingenii (Latin ''ingeniī'', the "Sea of Cleverness") is one of the few lunar mare features on the far side of the Moon. The mare sits in the Ingenii basin, which is of the Pre-Nectarian epoch, which lies in turn in the outer part of the older and much larger South Pole–Aitken basin. The mare material located in Ingenii and the surrounding craters is of the Upper Imbrian epoch. The dark circular feature which dominates this mare is the crater Thomson (112 km diameter), with the overflow from Ingenii/Thomson directly to the east. Mare Ingenii is incompletely and thinly covered over much of its expanse with mare lava sheets. The light grey crater to the south of Mare Ingenii is Obruchev. The mare has swirling patterns of bright material, similar to Reiner Gamma and to patterns within Mare Marginis, which are not associated with topographic or volcanic features. The lunar swirls are believed to be associated with magnetic fields. Prior to formal naming in 1961 by the IA ...
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Mare Marginis
Mare Marginis (Latin ''marginis'', the "Sea of the Edge") is a lunar mare that lies on the very edge of the lunar nearside. The selenographic coordinates of this feature are 13.3° N, 86.1° E, and the diameter is 358 km. The name is Latin for "Sea of the Edge". This mare differs from most of the nearside maria; it has an irregular outline and it appears to be fairly thin. It has small circular and elongated features in the mare plains that probably mark impact craters buried by less than 1000 to 1700 feet (300 to 500 m) of lava. Further, Mare Marginis is not centered on any clear, large impact basin. Thus, Mare Marginis seems to mark a low-lying region of the highlands where mare lavas were just able to reach the surface. Several large mare-floored craters also occur nearby. In these craters, the crater floors lie below the surrounding highland surface. Thus, they mark sites around Mare Marginis where lavas were close to the lunar surface. The major crater to the north of ...
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Reiner Gamma
Reiner Gamma (γ) is a geographical feature of the Moon known as a lunar swirl. It is one of the most visible lunar swirls from Earth, visible from most telescopes. It was originally thought to be a lunar highland, but scientists eventually realized that it cast no shadow on the moon. Origin The origin of Reiner Gammalike other lunar swirlsis not completely understood. It is associated with a localized magnetic field, but not with any particular irregularities in the surface. Similar features have been discovered in Mare Ingenii and Mare Marginis by orbiting spacecraft. The feature on Mare Ingenii is located at the lunar opposite point from the center of Mare Imbrium. Likewise the feature on Mare Marginis is opposite the midpoint of Mare Orientale. Thus one hypothesis is that the feature resulted from seismic energies generated by the impacts that created these maria. However, no such lunar mare formation is on the opposite side of the Moon from Reiner Gamma. Location and Feature ...
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Space Weathering
Space weathering is the type of weathering that occurs to any object exposed to the harsh environment of outer space. Bodies without atmospheres (including the Moon, Mercury, the asteroids, comets, and most of the moons of other planets) take on many weathering processes: * collisions of galactic cosmic rays and solar cosmic rays, * irradiation, implantation, and sputtering from solar wind particles, and * bombardment by different sizes of meteorites and micrometeorites. Space weathering is important because these processes affect the physical and optical properties of the surface of many planetary bodies. Therefore, it is critical to understand the effects of space weathering in order to properly interpret remotely sensed data. History Much of our knowledge of the space weathering process comes from studies of the lunar samples returned by the Apollo program, particularly the lunar soils (or regolith). The constant flux of high energy particles and micrometeorites, along ...
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