Here are a bunch of space and moon related stories I have seen and liked recently.
First is the suggestion that following the collision between earth and another protoplanet that resulted in the formation of our moon, there may have actually been multiple moons around earth for up to 100 million years.
Next is the story that NASA have managed to recover data from a science mission on the Columbia Space shuttle (which crashed in 1993). A hard disc containing the data from the experiment was found and most of the data was eventually able to be recovered. If it weren’t in somewhat bad taste it’d make a good advertising camapaign for the hardware manufacturer (“Our disks are built so tough they even survive re-entry”).
Next is a story about a NASA mission to send a manned crew to land on a nearby asteriod. Is anyone else thinking Armageddon?
And finally a little closer the the ground, Microsoft has released a kind of inverted google earth. Their program called Worldwide telescope looks at the skies and uses images from a number of different space and ground based telescopes to allow you to zoom in and out to see all manner of celestial objects from the comfort of your home computer. Normally I don’t plug Microsoft programs, but apparently this one is pretty good and quite innovative.