Last supermoon until 2037 rises; rover finds sulfur
WASHINGTON: Astronomy enthusiasts were in for a treat Wednesday night: A rare “super blue Moon” that won’t be seen again for more than a decade. Supermoons occur when the Moon passes through its perigee, or the point that takes it closest to Earth during its elliptical orbit. This makes it look about 14 percent bigger compared to when it is at its furthest point, and a touch brighter. Full Moons are defined by the exact moment they are opposite the Sun, which occurred at 9:36 pm Eastern Time on August 30 (0136 GMT Thursday), according to NASA.
The Virtual Telescope Project, hosted by Italian astronomer Gianluca Masi, hosted a YouTube livestream beginning at 0336 GMT as it set below the skyline of Rome. Despite the description, it wasn’t actually blue: The term “blue Moon” simply refers to when we see a full moon twice in a month. This happens because lunar cycles are a bit shorter at 29.5 days than calendar months, which last 30 or 31 days, so it’s possible for one to happen at the start of a month and the other right at the end.
The previous super blue Moon occurred in Dec 2009, with the next set to come in quick succession: January and March of 2037. The origins of the English expression “once in a blue Moon”, today understood to mean something that is very rare, go back hundreds of years. In Elizabethan times, “he would argue the Moon was blue” could be said about a person making outlandish or patently absurd claims. It is possible, however, for the Moon to take on a blue hue in the right circumstances.
This can occur as a result of smoke or dust particles in the atmosphere scattering red wavelengths of life, such as following the eruption of Krakatoa in Indonesia in 1883. Dust from the event “turned sunsets green and the Moon blue all around the world for the best part of two years,” according to Sky & Telescope magazine. A more recent example may have occurred after 1950’s Chinchaga Firestorm, a huge blaze that consumed the northern boreal forests of Canada. The planet Saturn, just a few days out from its closest and brightest approach to Earth this year, will also appear near the Moon.
While the super blue Moon will make for spectacular photos, its stronger gravitational pull also makes tides higher, which could exacerbate coastal flooding from Hurricane Idalia as it sweeps across Florida. Meanwhile, India’s Moon rover has confirmed the presence of sulfur on the lunar south pole, the country’s space agency said. Last week, India became the first country to land a craft near the largely unexplored south pole, and just the fourth nation to land on the Moon. “The Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) instrument onboard Chandrayaan-3 Rover has made the first-ever in-situ measurements on the elemental composition of the lunar surface near the south pole,” the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) said in a statement dated Monday.
“These in-situ measurements confirm the presence of sulfur in the region unambiguously, something that was not feasible by the instruments onboard the orbiters,” it said. The spectrographic analysis also confirmed the presence of aluminum, calcium, iron, chromium and titanium on the lunar surface, ISRO added, with additional measurements showing the presence of manganese, silicon and oxygen. The six-wheeled solar-powered rover Pragyan — “Wisdom” in Sanskrit — will amble around the relatively unmapped south pole and transmit images and scientific data over its two-week lifespan.
India has been steadily matching the achievements of other space programs at a fraction of their cost, despite suffering some setbacks. Four years ago, the previous Indian lunar mission failed during its final descent, in what was seen at the time as a huge setback for the program. Chandrayaan-3 has captivated public attention since launching nearly six weeks ago in front of thousands of cheering spectators, and its successful touchdown on the Moon last week came just days after a Russian lander crashed in the same region.
In 2014, India became the first Asian nation to put a craft into orbit around Mars and plans to send a probe towards the sun in September. ISRO is slated to launch a three-day crewed mission into Earth’s orbit by next year. It also plans a joint mission with Japan to send another probe to the Moon by 2025 and an orbital mission to Venus within the next two years
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