Photograph from the most recent Lunar Eclipse, which occurred on February 20, 2008
Today 40 years ago in 1969 the Apollo 11 crew landed on the moon. The crewmembers were Neil A. Armstrong, commander; Michael Collins, command module pilot; and Edwin E. Aldrin Jr., lunar module pilot. Neil Armstrong is probably the most famous as the first man to walk on the moon, and of course everyone knows of Buzz Aldrin, who is first man to pee on the moon. That is no joke also, It was put out there by National Geographic. Michael Collins is of course forgotten most of the time because he was the behind the scenes guy who had to stay with the command module.
An oblique view of the lunar farside photographed from the Apollo 11 spacecraft in lunar orbit, looking southwest. The large crater in the center of the picture is International Astronomical Union crater (IAU) no. 308, which is located at 179 degrees east longitude and 5.5 degrees south latitude. IAU crater no. 308 has a diameter of about 50 statute miles. The ruggted terrain seen here is typical of the farside of the Moon.
There are moon rocks on display at the Rhode Island State House through Friday from 8:30am-4:30pm, to commemorate this accomplishment. However, they are so tiny that I think I may need my macro lens just to try and get a decent shot of them, of course I could also try to get a nice composition of them with the flag. Moon rocks today are considered priceless, although Russia has sold moon pebbles for $442,500 at Sotheby’s in 1993. Also some were put up for sale about 6 years back that were given as a retirement gift to Mr. Healy, an engineer at NASA’s Lunar Receiving Laboratory who worked on the Apollo missions and who died over a decade ago.
Scientists claim moon rocks are several billions years old, however they have no real way to know for sure, is all they can do is guess that the uranium has always decayed at a steady rate based on recent data. Moon rocks are valuable most simply, because of their rarity and novelty (they are valuable to scientists also for knowledge that can be gleaned). Although, they are for the most part no different than earth rocks except they lack iron and other heavy metals.
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Tags: anniversary, apollo, lunar, moon, moon landing