Who Invented The Lunar Surface Ultraviolet Camera/spectrograph For Apollo 16

Buzz Aldrin, Apollo xi. Credit: NASA

Mankind starting time stepped pes on the Moon on 20 July 1969, achieving what is arguably humanity's greatest ever feat of exploration. For two and a one-half hours, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin explored the lunar surface on pes while Michael Collins piloted the Apollo eleven orbiter around the Moon. That's the history that nosotros keep to celebrate today, nearly 50 years on from the offset landing. Many of u.s. either remember watching the landing ourselves or have heard the memories from our parents and grandparents. But what do you say when someone insists that the Moon landings never really happened?

In this blog, nosotros dig into some of the mutual questions around the Moon landings, and address the more curious lunar phenomena with the latest data and scientific understanding. A vast weight of evidence supports the fact that humans really did land on the Moon multiple times betwixt 1969 and 1972. But it is important to question and think critically about events of this scale – and sometimes researching and puzzling out the answers can be half the fun!

Wouldn't the Van Allen belts have fried the astronauts?

Credit: NASA

Ane of the most pop theories every bit to why the Moon landings couldn't take happened has to do with something chosen the Van Allen belts. These are two huge belts of radiation that surround the Earth, shaped past World'southward magnetic field and pounded with high-energy particles from the Sunday'south wind. It'due south been claimed that humans couldn't take passed through these belts without being fried with lethal doses of radiation.

In fact, the international scientific customs was aware of the Van Allen belts thanks to the Explorer, Pioneer, and Luna missions in the 1950s. Luckily, the timings of the Apollo launches were such that the Van Allen belts were at their lowest intensity, which fluctuates with the Sun's activity.

Radiation sickness occurs when you have been exposed to effectually 200 to 1000 'rads' of radiation within a few hours. The Apollo 11 crew were inside the belts for less than ii hours during their journeying to the Moon, then would have simply been exposed to an estimated xviii rads – well inside the safety limit. At that place can however be some adverse furnishings from even this level of radiation, so NASA fabricated sure that the Apollo 11 spacecraft was well-insulated such that the average dose of radiation over the 12-day mission was only 0.xviii rads, or like to the radiation dosage from a chest Ten-ray.

You tin work through all the maths of the estimated radiation levels, along with some helpful answers, in this NASA Education worksheet here.

For more information see this splendid web log from Vintage Space.

Why did the flag flap on the Moon?

Credit: Wikimedia Commons/NASA

Another 'giveaway' that the landing was faked comes from the footage of the American flag that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin placed on the Moon. From photos and video, it appears to be flapping in the wind. But hold on a minute! There'southward no air on the Moon so how can information technology flutter?!

The truth is that the flag isn't flapping. If y'all look closely at the gif to the left, the flag is in the same position between 2 frames as the astronaut moves. In that location is a horizontal rod projecting from the post at the top of the pole to hold the flag unfurled. The flag was disturbed equally it was planted into the basis and kept this bent shape because of the lack of strong gravity on the Moon.

In video footage of the flag being planted into the Moon'southward surface, information technology also appears to wave dorsum and forth. This is because when the astronauts were planting it, they rotated it back and along to ameliorate dig into the lunar soil, which of course made the flag ripple as it swung similar a pendulum- without a breeze. At that place's a huge amount of footage of the flags stood on the Moon in exactly the same position.

Why can't we see stars in the Moon landing pictures?

Buzz Aldrin and the U.South. Flag on the Moon. Credit: NASA

Speaking of the flag photographs, information technology's often pointed out that there are no stars to be seen in the groundwork! This is really a common characteristic of photographs from space, where the dissimilarity between lite and dark is extreme. The surface of the Moon reflects the strong sunlight and appears very brilliant in photographs. This brightness drowns out the relatively dim lite from stars in the dark heaven, akin to how car headlights can drown out the fainter light from nearby objects. The human eye can adjust and pick out the stars, merely unless it's set to the right settings, a camera struggles with the contrast. Astronauts on the International Space Station today regularly take photographs of the World that show a completely starless background, but it'southward the same problem of contrasts at work.

For more information, read this blog from astrophysicist Brian Koberlein or astronaut Tim Peake's response to this question in his FAQs.

What nearly those funny shadows?

Credit: NASA

Let'due south talk about the shadows in photographs from the Moon. Ane of the subtler arguments against the Moon landings has to exercise with non-parallel shadows. If the Sun is the only source of calorie-free, why do some shadows appear to betoken in multiple directions? For instance, in the moving picture on the left, the astronaut'due south shadow matches up with the lander's, just there seems to be another shadow from the lander foot pointing towards the astronaut. At that place must be additional studio lights to explain this!

Actually, a crude, uneven surface can cause all sorts of shadows at different angles, fifty-fifty with a unmarried light source like the Sun. This something that can be hands experimented with at home. The combination of the Moon'due south rough surface and the long shadows from a Sunday low in the sky can easily create complicated shadows.

The funny shadow in the picture higher up is probable created by an uneven ridge that extends towards astronaut and a depression-bending Sun.

You tin can watch the MythBusters gang attempt this out, and explore many other Moon landing myths, in their NASA Moon Landing episode.

The rock prop labelled with a 'C'

Copied epitome with 'C' stone. Credit: NASA

The infamous labelled rock from the Apollo 16 mission. Film props are frequently numbered and lettered so that stagehands know where to identify them. The theory goes that the rock in the photo to the left is a prop that someone must have accidentally placed facing the wrong way.

Merely in fact, the label simply isn't there. The paradigm of the rock is taken from a much larger shot of the Moon'south surface, and if you lot look at the original image (shown beneath left), the marking isn't in that location. Either a small-scale hair or piece of thread must accept got caught in the machine while it was being copied (image below right).

For more detailed analysis of these pictures, check out this blog.

Modernistic Proof

Credit: Gregory H. Revera

There are of course many more arguments against the Moon landings out at that place. Many of them are addressed on sites like clavius.org, which is a expert resources for all things related to Apollo. Only the key thing to do when presented with new questions and theories surrounding the Moon landings is to ask questions, think about logical explanations, and practise your homework. There are vast swathes of archive fabric out in that location about all of NASA's missions past and present and it can be a fascinating journeying.

Only we didn't want to spend all this fourth dimension addressing Moon landing myths without also discussing some of the more than contempo, international evidence that proves that humans once did walk on the Moon. The show doesn't just come from NASA.

Hither are iii modern examples:

Apollo xv site past and present

Apollo xv site as photographed past the astronauts. Credit: NASA

Apollo xv site every bit captured by SELENE. Credit: JAXA

The image on the pinnacle left was taken by the Apollo 15 crew in 1971. The image below is a 3D visualisation from several photographs captured by a Japanese lunar orbiter called SELENE in 2008.

The camera on SELENE didn't accept the resolution to capture private rocks, but the two images are obviously of the same terrain in the aforementioned scenery, from lunar missions separated by 37 years and directed by space agencies from ii different countries.

SELENE also captured images of the halo of lunar dust created from the Apollo 15 lunar module exhaust. Read more here.

We can see the astronauts' footprints!

Apollo 17 landing site with labels. Credit: NASA

Apollo 14 landing site. Credit: NASA

We can actually run into the footprints and spacecraft left backside past the Apollo astronauts.

Information technology is ofttimes claimed that if we really landed on the Moon, then it should be adequately easy to run into the prove with a telescope such equally Hubble. Just as powerful as Hubble is at spying galaxies, information technology only doesn't have the resolution to selection upwardly fine details similar spacecraft on the Moon – they're too pocket-size and the Moon is as well far abroad.

Thankfully, we do have a closer spacecraft, NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has been in orbit around the Moon since 2009. And it has captured recent photographs of all the Apollo landing sites (encounter here and here). These images evidence the Apollo spacecraft in exactly the right locations and amazingly, you can fifty-fifty meet the astronauts' footprints as they explored their lunar home.

These landing sites take also been independently spotted by a multifariousness of other spacecraft from China, India, and, as discussed above, Japan.

The proof's in the Moon rock

Glass spherule from an Apollo 11 Moon rock. Credit: Timothy Culler (UCB) et al., Apollo 11 Crew, NASA

Apollo 17 Moon Rock on display. Credit: National Space Heart/NASA

Finally, we take the proof that the Moon landings actually happened correct here on Globe, in the form of Moon rocks. The image on the left is a glass spherule, of which many were found in the 382 kilograms of Moon rocks that were brought back by the Apollo coiffure.

Glass spherules are produced ii cardinal means: in explosive volcanic activity and by high-speed meteorite impacts that melt and vaporize rock. In either case, the stone needs time to absurd and crystallise slowly. On Earth, the elements rapidly interruption down any volcanically-produced drinking glass. But in space, glass spherules survive well-nigh pristine, and we've found them in both meteorites that take fallen to Globe and in the Moon rocks returned from the Apollo missions, proving that the Apollo crew were indeed space travellers.

When the first rocks were returned from the Apollo eleven mission, samples were given to 135 different countries around the world as a gesture of skillful will. These rocks accept withstood every possible geology test from labs effectually the world, and these accept confirmed they are indeed of lunar origin.

No other space mission, manned or unmanned, has been capable of returning such quantities of stone. The Soviet Marriage'due south Luna unmanned programme did bring back some rocks in the 1970s, only only a third of ane kilogram. These rocks have been shared with international scientists and match the characteristics of the Apollo Moon rocks.

Apollo 15. Credit: NASA

This blog only skims the surface of the vast quantities of scientific bear witness by and present that supports the Apollo Moon landings.

We have explored some of the common questions that environs the Moon landings and have presented the arguments, experiments, and evidence that you tin can explore further.

The Moon landings were a unique, amazing moment in history and we tin can't wait to celebrate the upcoming 50^th anniversaries from 2019 to 2022! Nosotros besides await frontward to the moment when humans once over again return to the Moon.

Learn more than: You tin can meet a piece of the Moon in the Rocket Tower of the National Space Centre

Most the Author: Scott Davis is a electric current physics student and president of the Physics Society at the University of Leicester. He as well works as a Science Interpreter at the National Infinite Centre.

Source: https://spacecentre.co.uk/blog-post/know-moon-landing-really-happened/

Posted by: herreralefterim.blogspot.com

Share this post