[graphics on screen]
[Music]
♪ There you go, you got me believing ♪
♪ In the power of a moonlit night. ♪
♪ All I know is you give me that feelin' ♪
♪ Like I never want to tell you lies. ♪
♪ And I just wanna take a chance ♪
♪ Never let go of your hand ♪
♪ Travel to the stars and back with you. ♪
♪ On another moonlit night ♪
♪ Can you feel the magic here tonight? ♪
♪ The hours seem to fly ♪
♪ But hearts like yours and mine ♪
♪ Always beat in perfect time - ♪
♪ To the music of a moonlit night. ♪♪
[Music]
Welcome everyone to NASA’s International Observe the Moon Night broadcast.
I’m your host Andrea Jones,
and I’m here at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland
to help guide you through a great program.
International Observe the Moon Night is a day each year that we invite everyone on Earth to observe the Moon,
to learn about the Moon, and to honor the cultural and personal connections we have to the Moon.
It’s a day to catch up on what's been happening in lunar science and exploration,
to celebrate the Moon in our arts and culture,
and for lunar enthusiasts around the world to connect.
This is our 13th International Observe the Moon Night, and we are so glad that you are here with us.
While you are watching, or after the broadcast, you can check out our website: moon.nasa.gov/observe.
Here you’ll find lots of information and resources, some creative observing ideas –
because you can observe the Moon with senses other than sight -
and our map of lunar observers around the world.
You can add yourself to this map by registering!
You can also find out how other people are participating,
and share your own pictures and experiences, in the International Observe the Moon Night Flickr gallery
and by using the #ObserveTheMoon hashtag wherever you are on social media.
International Observe the Moon Night was inspired by events
celebrating the arrival of NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter
and NASA’s Lunar Crater Observing and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS,
at the Moon in 2009.
Since then, LCROSS has successfully completed its mission
and LRO continues to teach us new things about the Moon.
I’m going to pass things over to the Project Scientist for LRO, Dr. Noah Petro,
who will give an update on what’s been happening with the spacecraft and the mission.
Hi! I'm Noah Petro, lunar enthusiast and project scientist for NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter,
a spacecraft we call LRO.
Imagine for a moment that you're about to take a long road trip.
What sorts of information might you want to have before you go on that trip?
You probably want to know the path, the route that you'll take, you’ll want to know where you can refuel,
and where you can get out and stretch your legs and take in the view.
Well, in 2009 NASA sent LRO to do just that for the Moon -
to create a high-resolution digital atlas of our nearest neighbor in space.
On LRO we have instruments that collect high resolution images, map the topography of the Moon,
better than any other object in the solar system and tell us where those valuable resources exist at and near the lunar surface.
In short, LRO has ushered in a completely new era in our understanding of the Moon,
how it changes and how it existed maybe four and a half billion years ago.
With this data we're prepared for a new generation of lunar explorers to get back to the lunar surface.
Both human and robotic explorers will use the data from LRO to not only safely navigate the lunar surface
but conduct some of the most sophisticated science investigations of any planetary surface ever.
Now what do you do when you've done all those exciting things at the Moon?
Well, you prepare for other explorers. And over the next three years LRO has a new mission in store.
So, let's learn a little bit more about that mission by watching this video let's take a look!
This year the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter celebrates 13 years
of orbit around our Moon.
And in that time, it has collected over a petabyte of data -
the largest volume ever collected
by a planetary science mission at NASA.
Due to its success and continued operational abilities,
NASA has awarded the spacecraft an additional
extended mission phase so that it can continue
gathering critical information on the Moon
and help pave the way for future lunar missions.
Going forward, the LRO mission will have four main areas of focus.
The first is the study of volatiles, which are chemicals
that easily evaporate or vaporize, such as water.
In terms of lunar exploration, volatiles will be useful
for things like creating rocket fuel
and making oxygen to breathe.
So they are a primary resource
that future astronauts will depend on having.
LRO will continue to provide new data for identifying which areas
are rich in volatiles, and for clueing us in to how they may
move around the lunar surface.
Current LRO data suggests they may be frozen in
permanently shadowed craters, in areas that receive some sunlight,
and may be chemically locked in minerals on the Moon.
This is helping pave the way for future missions like VIPER,
which will send a robotic rover to explore an area near
the lunar South Pole,
and ultimately, the astronaut-led Artemis missions.
The second area of focus is on the Moon’s interior,
volcanic features and the tectonics of the Moon’s surface –
because understanding the lunar surface requires knowledge
of what’s been going on underneath.
Scientists want to figure out when the Moon
was last volcanically active, and how current geologic processes,
like moonquakes, could affect the safety of future exploration.
They’ll do these things by studying lobate scarps,
as well as deep crustal and mantle composition
that are exposed at the surface.
Studying the Moon’s history of volcanism and tectonics
will also inform us about other planetary bodies
in our solar system and beyond.
The third area of focus is on the Moon’s surface –
its regolith and impact craters.
We want to know how impact craters break down,
and if different ejected materials might degrade at different rates.
These studies will give us a better understanding of the mineral
and chemical makeup of the lunar surface and subsurface.
This information can tell us how the Moon has changed
over hundreds of millions, or billions of years.
Studying the Moon’s regolith and impact craters
also informs scientists about space weathering,
which can help similar studies looking at the Earth,
as well as on places like Mars, Mercury, or even asteroids.
The last focus area for LRO going forward
is support for future missions.
NASA has plans for numerous missions to go
to the lunar surface during LRO’s extended phase.
Sending missions to the lunar surface requires planning,
not only to build the mission,
but to find safe and interesting landing sites.
LRO is in a unique position to directly assist
with some of those operations and science objectives.
LRO can help identify landing sites by making maps
that tell us what the surface is like,
where there may be hazards to landers,
and where there are interesting features to explore.
LRO is also capable of helping landed missions
get simultaneous measurements from orbit
while they gather data from the surface.
After studying the Moon for 13 years, LRO has proven to be
one of NASA’s most valuable tools for advancing lunar science.
And as it continues collecting data, the spacecraft helps
lead the way for future exploration of our Moon.
[Music]
Hi. I'm Surabhi,
I'm Zoe.
I'm Ben.
I'm Chloe. And I'm Samuel.
We are amateur astronomers.
We are currently observing from Roundwood County Wicklow, Ireland's highest village.
Here is how we observe the Moon. Or, as we say in Irish, “feachaint ar an ngealach”
We are ready for Artemis!
Hi. I'm Marry. I'm Erica.
And I'm Frank. And we're from the Center for Astrophysics, a collaboration between
the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and the Harvard College Observatory.
Our favorite way to observe the Moon is with the MicroObservatory
Robotic Telescope Network. A network of telescopes like this one in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
We also have telescopes in Arizona, and even Chile.
So join us observing at microobservatory.org.
Choose - observing with NASA portal -
select the target Moon and an email of your picture
of the Moon will arrive the next day. So join us!
Hello, everyone.
We are the NDLOVU choir from South Africa.
And we are so excited to be celebrating an International Observe the Moon Night with . . . NASA!
Welcome back! The Moon is near first quarter today,
which means you can find it in the afternoon and evening sky.
It’s a great phase to observe the Moon through a telescope or pair of binoculars.
The line between day and night, which is called the terminator,
is a great place to see the rugged lunar terrain really pop out.
There are long shadows from crater rims and mountain peaks that are as high, or higher, than what we have on Earth!
With a telescope you can catch glimpses of volcanoes, fractures, or big cracks, in the Moon’s surface,
and even winding channels carved by lava!
But you don’t need a telescope or pair of binoculars to observe the Moon.
With just your eyes you can see dark and light patches.
The dark patches are plains of solid lava called maria—the Latin word for seas—
and the light patches are the rugged lunar highlands.
There is a lot to learn from observing the lunar surface.
Take a look at this next video for a view of an interesting site.
[Music]
Ariadaeus Rille is one of the Moon’s best examples
of a straight rille.
Running roughly east to west,
it appears as a great fracture in the lunar crust,
measuring about 220 kilometers long, 4 kilometers wide,
and 0.8 kilometers deep.
This is an example of a graben, where a long block of land
drops down between two parallel faults.
It may have been formed by a rising dyke of magma
wedging open a crack in the lunar crust.
[Music fades]
[Music]
Studying the Moon allows us to peer back into history in a number of ways.
By studying the Moon’s geologic history, we can learn about its formation, and what happened over time,
as well as about the geologic history of the Earth, and other Moons and planets in our solar system.
NASA’s Apollo program made history by bringing the first humans to the lunar surface,
allowing us to experience, first-hand, what the Moon is really like.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of Apollo 17,
which was the last of the Apollo missions to visit the lunar surface.
It’s an incredible milestone, and this next set of videos will help us see how that history connects with our current exploration
of the Moon, and what is coming in the future.
Take a look!
Later this year, Apollo 17 astronaut and geologist Jack
Schmitt will mark fifty years since his first steps on
the Moon in December 1972. Those footprints left an impression on
both the Moon and on Schmitt.
“No matter how much preparation
you have for experiences like stepping on the Moon, it’s going
to be more than you ever anticipated.” Schmitt was the
first trained field geologist to observe the Moon up close and
personal, and he found himself discovering unexpected things
with every step. “Every rock that we examined had something
new that I didn’t expect. And surprises are what geologists
like. That’s why you’re exploring – to see the things
that no one has ever seen before.” Schmitt spent a
combined twenty-two hours outside of the spacecraft during
his three excursions on the Moon. Before his own trip,
Schmitt trained other Apollo astronauts. Sharing with them
his in-depth knowledge of field work. “The main thing was to
expose them to as many different geological experiences as we
possibly could. Get them out in the field – don’t let them sit
in the classroom.” He treated training scenarios on Earth the
same way he would if they were on the moon. Including simulated
equipment, backpacks and cameras strapped to the front of
spacesuits. Astronauts could then focus on what differences
in the rocks they were seeing, and what rock samples were best
to collect. Essentially giving them the fundamental field
geological experiences that they needed to succeed. The four or
five days per month Schmitt spent training astronauts in the
field really did made a difference. “The quality and
diversity of the Apollo sample collection, independent of
Apollo 17 where you had an experienced geologist, the
quality and diversity of that sample collection is just
remarkable.” Fortunately, the current
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission, or LRO, is changing
the game; bringing back high- quality photography of the Moon
that Schmitt only wished he’d seen before his own trip. “The
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter program now has provided us with
a much, much higher resolution suite of photographs for any
future astronauts.” What we learned from the Apollo missions
helped lay the groundwork for LRO, and LRO will help guide
future explorers. “Every new environment in which a geologist
works is usually very different than the last, but you have
learned things from your previous experiences that do in
fact enable you to maximize the value of your new experience.”
Schmitt has his fingers crossed for future Moon exploration, a
landscape he considers holds answers to many questions about
the early solar system. “You can hear people talk about it, but
you can’t absorb it until you’re there.”
[Music and beeping]
[Music]
Apollo 17, the final Apollo mission to land on the Moon,
visited the spectacular Taurus-Littrow valley,
deeper than Earth’s Grand Canyon.
In December 1972, astronauts Gene Cernan and Jack Schmitt
explored an active fault scarp, a gigantic landslide deposit,
and brought back samples including beads of volcanic glass
erupted in an ancient lunar fire fountain.
Schmitt was the first professional geologist on the Moon.
[Music fades]
[Music]
So we received samples from the Apollo 17 mission
which were returned to Earth in December of 1972.
So nearly 50 years ago.
Basically we collected on the moon and brought back,
then they were frozen within about a month of being returned.
So no one's ever looked at them since.
It's very exciting.
Curation facility at NASA's Johnson Space Center
sent us the samples and they did have to do some special efforts to keep them cold
because we wanted them to stay frozen.
So they had a special cold shipping box with panels
that were frozen in a very cold freezer and a chunk of dry ice.
We picked it up from the receiving office here at Goddard
opened it up, pulled the samples out and stuck them straight in our freezer
and locked them up safely.
So these
frozen samples were actually collected from a region on the moon
that was in shadow from the sun.
So it was basically a large boulder.
In the near future, we're going back to the moon
and hopefully going to the polar regions of the moon
where some of these regions are in permanent shadow
and they don't see the sun, you know, they're cold.
These particular samples are really great analogs for what we might expect
to see in the polar regions when we go back.
So we actually started last week to process the samples.
So the samples we got are basically dirt, lunar dirt, and we basically made "Moon
tea" out of them.
So "Moon tea"
is what we call it when we pull out the soluble compounds from the soil.
And so we basically take the lunar sample, seal it up with a torch in a little
glass test tube full of water, stick it in an oven overnight and boil it.
And we're just pulling out those soluble compounds that we care about
the same way you'd make tea with boiling water at home.
What we're trying to do is answer some questions
about the history this sample experienced at the surface of the Moon.
The surface of the Moon is a really hostile environment.
You know, it's not like here on Earth where we have this
beautiful atmosphere that protects us from the nasties of space.
So we have particles from the sun that are continuously hitting the
surface of the Moon.
And we've got galactic
cosmic rays that are coming in and penetrating into the surface as well.
They actually create noble gases in these particles.
So you can imagine that there's none to begin with.
And then as they get exposed to this space environment,
they kind of get more and more buildup of noble gases.
And our technique is to actually unlock those noble gases from the sample,
a measure of them, so we can come up with what we call a cosmic ray exposure age.
So it's basically how long this sample has been sat at the surface being exposed.
It's basically getting a "space tan."
Say, 50 years ago,
this same technique, which is called the Noble Gas Mass Spectrometry
would probably need anywhere, you know, tens to hundreds of milligrams
to do the same thing that we now do with a couple of milligrams.
It's really special to be part of this, and particularly
because I can look back at the papers and the processes that the curation office
and the scientists in the 1970s thought about and they put so much care
into preserving these samples for future science
to making sure that they were going to be at their,
you know, the best conditions so that as we develop new techniques,
we're able to go and look at these samples and get new answers
to the science questions that were being asked.
You know, I'm still studying these samples 50 years later
for the from the Apollo mission, the original Apollo missions
and you know, you don't know what's going to be in another 50 years,
but I'm still a part of the Apollo dream of going to the Moon
and bringing samples back.
So the fact that we have Artemis now is amazing.
Like having our own Artemis generation is really exciting.
I just can't wait to see people go back to the Moon.
[Music fades]
NASA's Astro Materials Research and Exploration Science
or ARES team at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas,
is responsible for curating the agency's Apollo lunar samples.
Studies that these moon rocks continue to unveil discoveries about the Moon
and our solar system, but also help prepare for the return of samples
collected during future Artemis missions.
Recent work by our team on samples
such as the Apollo 17 core seen here supports the Apollo
Next Generation Sample Analysis or ANGSA initiative.
This initiative has enabled a new generation of explorers
equipped with new and improved technologies to study Apollo samples.
ANGSA helps link generations of lunar explorers
and has also enabled our team to capture valuable lessons learned
that can be applied to collecting and curating moon rocks
from Apollo to Artemis. Let's take a look at how NASA's got samples from the Moon.
[Music]
“Liftoff . . . all engines running . . . liftoff . . . We have liftoff!”
”Tranquility base here. The Eagle has landed!”
“Oh, man, look at that rock out there! Absolutely incredible.”
[Music]
Apollo samples may have been collected 50 years ago,
but new and exciting research is ongoing.
Seen here is the Apollo 17 core sample
that was vacuum sealed on the Moon. Earlier this year,
almost 50 years later, the team members seen here were involved
in the successful extraction of gases from the core sample vacuum container.
The many lessons learned from
this process will be applied to the future collection of volatiles,
which you can think of as gases from water or hydrogen or carbon dioxide or others
that we hope to collect during Artemis missions.
The team also carefully processed lunar material collected in the Apollo 17
core from below the lunar surface, carefully separating out individual pieces
of various sizes and documenting every step taken throughout the process.
Utilizing technologies
such as X-ray computed tomography or XCT scans,
which you can think of or think about, like scans a doctor may take of your brain
or another part of your body to see what it looks like without doing surgery - well-
these types of scans provide exciting data valuable for research,
but scans of the vacuum sealed Apollo 17 core proved to be extremely valuable
in the successful gas extraction and processing.
These lessons learned, again, will be applied to the collection
and curation of future samples.
Lunar exploration and investigating moon rocks
is exciting, and individuals of all ages can get involved.
One way is to check out our Astromaterials 3D Lunar Collection.
Astromaterials 3D allows an individual
to explore a subset of samples collected from the six Apollo surface missions.
You can select the mission, find a sample of interest to you,
and then open that sample and explore it further.
As you further explore the sample,
you can interact with the sample or you may decide to explore it even further,
using our Explorer tool. The Astromaterials, 3D Explorer allows you
to interact with the sample looking at it in different lighting conditions,
or even allowing you to view it in 3D.
Now, as you wear 3D glasses and explore this sample.
It's as though the sample is jumping out of the screen and into your hands.
Now, thanks to XCT scans of each sample,
again, think about a doctor taking a scan of a part of your body -
you can actually explore the interior of a sample,
in a sense, slicing into it and finding interesting features.
There are lots of other details available on the site,
but one additional aspect to point out is that you can even download
and print your own 3D model, which can also be fun.
Now additional resources we have available
are our classifying moon rock interactive.
“That’s one small step for man . . . one giant leap for mankind.”
This online interactive allows
learners of various ages to get introduced to our lunar lab,
build background as well as skills, enabling
a user to learn how to classify moon rocks as well.
Users can also learn fun facts about the samples, as well as fun facts
about each of the Apollo missions and so much more.
The interactive encourages users to continue their journey of exploration
with connection to views of landing sites,
as well as Astromaterials 3D and more.
We encourage you to take advantage of the many ways
to explore the Moon, including looking up at the night sky,
but also exploring and interacting with the moon rocks in our collection
using resources we have available on our website.
We hope
you, as we are, are excited about the journey back to the Moon
as we continue to learn from Apollo and look to the future
with Artemis and the future collection and curation of moon rocks.
I’m focusing on the Moon because humans will be expanding the area of activity in the near future.
I’ve been supporting it from the aspect of landing site analysis using observation data.
Let’s look up at the Moon and imagine humans walking there again!
My name is Kinga Gruszecka, let's observe the Moon together!
We are like the Moon. Each phase is a change, to reach our fullness.
Hooray for Observe the Moon Night!
Hey, we're the 2022 winter over crew at the bottom of the world, observing
from the National Science Foundation
Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station here in Antarctica.
In Spanish, we say “observa la luna.”
In French, we say “observe la lune.”
South Pole station’s looking forward to Artemis one launch,
and NASA going back to the Moon!
If I go to the Moon, I'd bring some crackers just in case it's made of cheese! [laughing]
Hello again, I hope you’re enjoying this International Observe the Moon Night broadcast.
As a reminder, you can visit our website: moon.nasa.gov/observe
where you can find resources, activities, viewing guides, and more -
lots of things to help you learn more about the Moon
and enhance your experience participating in International Observe the Moon Night.
Now, the Moon has been an important marker of time for humans for tens of thousands of years.
It’s an important part of creation stories in cultures around the world.
It’s woven into our language and our art.
Today, the Moon continues to inspire poets and painters,
artists and dreamers, scientists and explorers.
Next - we present some Moon poetry and also some
beautiful views of the lunar terrain that we hope will inspire you.
A brief history of the Moon.
When the Moon rises, it’s where you are.
Light reflected from the Sun shines in your eyes.
Your skin beneath the Moon is a long skein of stories too many here to tell.
Ah, but there is a man stooped fishing beneath a banyan tree,
there, and a precious elixir somewhere in, perhaps, the snow-white south.
They’ve said all that’s lost on Earth gathers heaped up there, on what they’ve also said was our mirror.
Inanna rotting monthly on a hook, global goddess, arrowed, lonely, dark, full,
and the children are singing: “Guard me till you die.”
Your heart brims with Moonlight because you love and are loved,
changing moods like shapes that cross the sky,
and someone in a cave once etched phases on antler to keep time.
We had to know. Silver falling through clear or clouds ringed like caution against the thief,
night-road, Moon-road, a destination reached: a village or, metaphorically, say,
the Moon itself drawn down from Heaven by the telescope, not spirit-smooth but rock.
You, tonight’s Galileo, can see time: collision-born! Craters!
Mountains shocked up to snare sunlight on the night’s ragged edge,
valleys of dust and boulders radiating from maria.
Just by looking, the Moon is yours where you are, living magnified by this lunar span.
I’m Julie Swardstad Johnson.
Nocturne with Freeway
The day having taken itself off, unruly as the mass of feral cats who have lately made my yard their own,
the Moon lifts up from behind Redington Pass, from behind domed mountains,
behind the overpass, the mound of asphalt massed up
so Broadway can be widened after years of debate and alternate proposals
and whatever it is that keeps us from choosing well together.
the Moon rules over all this. I don’t know if it’s full or a day past,
maybe one to go, my mind eager to fill in what’s missing.
It matters to me, here in all I lament and praise, the city’s million dreams surrounding me.
I want the precise name for this moment’s shine, a measure of all that does not pass through me.
[Music]
The future of lunar exploration is as bright as the Moon in our night sky.
NASA is gearing up to return humans back to the lunar surface with the Artemis missions.
We’ll be exploring the Moon’s South Pole, looking for water ice with the VIPER rover,
and with VERTEX will explore a feature known as Reiner Gamma,
an area that has beautiful white swirls and a very strong and mysterious magnetic field.
The women and men serving as the scientists, engineers and astronauts for these missions
are all helping us take the next giant leap forward in exploring and better understanding our Moon, and our universe.
There’s a lot on the horizon, as you’ll see in these next videos.
Artemis I is paving the way for us to explore deeper and deeper into space.
I think Artemis I is significant on so many levels.
It is a new frontier to do science.
So the primary objective is to test the Orion spacecraft integrated with the Space Launch System.
And it is designed to carry out the boldest of the bold missions.
But it's more than just learning how to travel in space.
We're taking a lot of cool science along with us on this first mission to the Moon.
So as NASA plans to go back to the surface of the Moon and then on to Mars,
we want to spend more time there and that's riskier business.
So the more we learn about the Moon itself and the environment where we'll be operating, the better we can prepare.
We have 10 CubeSats, we call secondary payloads, which are small scientific spacecraft of their own,
that will each be conducting their own scientific mission.
All of these payloads, in some form or fashion, will help us going forward.
They are going to be studying the Moon.
And they're going to help us understand, what is the Moon made out of?
What types of rocks? What types of regolith? What types of ice?
What's mixed in with water that might be present?
One of them is actually going to attempt to land on the Moon. They're going to be studying the Sun.
Understanding and studying the space environment or the space weather.
Some different propulsion systems.
These novel ideas will ultimately turn into the technology and the systems that we want to use going forward.
There's a lot of cool things going on between all these CubeSats that make up our secondary payloads.
Additionally, inside the Orion we'll be flying an experiment to study space biology.
Space biology is where we study the underlying changes that Earth-based biological systems undergo when they're in space.
Or basically how does life respond to the space environment?
The level of ionizing radiation that you experience when you go beyond the Van Allen belt,
so you go beyond the protective magnetic sphere that we have around us,
you then get exposed to higher levels of ionizing radiation.
So we are flying several space biology experiments.
We'll take a series of materials —
plant seeds,
fungi,
the yeast cell,
algae,
and ride along the trip. And then when it comes home we can analyze how they responded to that environment.
This research will help us thrive in space. It will help us to go further and stay there longer.
In addition to space biology, we'll be learning about how to make astronauts more effective in the Orion in the future.
An example of that is something called the Callisto technology demonstration.
Lockheed Martin built the Orion spacecraft for NASA.
And we'll be flying a secondary payload that's a demonstration payload called Callisto.
So we took the technology from Amazon for Alexa and the WebEx technology from Cisco
and so we built a digital assistant, if you will, a custom space-qualified Alexa.
Alexa, how does the life support system work?
Orion's life support system is the Environmental Control and Life Support System, or ECLS.
And so this payload is the demonstration mission to show how astronauts in the future
could use this technology as an innovative user interface.
So there you have it. I hope you agree with me, this is exciting.
I am just over the Moon excited for the Artemis I launch.
The science we'll conduct on Artemis I lays the groundwork
to ensure that we can safely conduct scientific activities at the Moon with our astronauts going forward.
This really is the stepping stone for us as we take that next giant leap in space exploration.
[Music]
Artemis is our 21st century return to the Moon.
Together, NASA, international space agencies,
and a growing global space industry
will explore Earth’s nearest neighbor with advanced robotics
and our next generation of astronauts.
But where will our astronauts explore?
The Moon is a treasure trove of scientific discovery,
and NASA has its sights set on the South Pole.
This mysterious region features soaring mountains
and deep craters, leading to unique locations
that experience nearly continuous sunlight –
in contrast to nearby depressions that never see the sun.
Artemis III will mark humanity’s return to the lunar surface
for the first time since 1972.
NASA has identified thirteen regions near the South Pole
that meet safety requirements for landing
and present opportunities to search for lunar resources.
Each region can also help us learn more about
the history of the Moon,
and gain a better understanding of our place in the solar system.
These thirteen candidate landing regions represent
a diversity of features in the lunar South Pole,
ranging from the summits of mountains
rising miles above their surroundings,
to the rims of large craters.
These features together act to both expose and preserve
billions of years of geologic history.
Using robotic orbiters and rovers,
NASA and the global science community
will continue to study these regions
before selecting the Artemis III landing site.
The astronauts selected for this bold expedition
will literally and figuratively shine a light
on some of the deepest, darkest areas of the solar system,
revealing ancient secrets of the universe.
[Music fades]
The goal of the test here at the slope lab is to test the latest VIPER
mobility prototype in this facility in order to verify requirements.
That means we want to check that the system does what it is supposed to do once on the Moon.
The VIPER test unit that is behind me
is a light version of the full VIPER rover.
We stripped down the heavy components to try to maintain the mass load
so that we can drive on Earth, which has a much higher gravity.
And we need to do this because the system
is designed to go to the Moon where it will be a lot lighter.
We have consulted NASA scientists who have analyzed images and data
from previous Apollo missions to determine the distribution of rocks
and craters of different sizes over certain areas of the terrain and
the shapes and characteristics of rocks that we expect to see on the surface.
So what we've done is use that information
to recreate a Moon-like terrain for the rover.
We're testing rover capabilities when we go into an extreme
sinkage environment.
So in the Moon, when we're roving, we might encounter areas
with fluffier soil, something similar to quicksand.
And so our rover has a capability to
still make forward progress in these quicksands.
We're also testing the ability that the rover has to move in
a very special way is similar to a caterpillar inchworming motion.
So the rover is able to
change the distance between its wheels
and apply power to the wheels in a very coordinated manner.
And that would allow the VIPER rover to get unstuck of this quicksand.
This is challenging for the rover, but it's important to test
because we need to better understand and mitigate risks and hazards to the rover.
And we have a great team of NASA engineers here to address any risk that we might face.
[Music]
Lacus Mortis, the Lake of Death, is a lava plain about 160 kilometers across.
It was chosen as the first landing site
for NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services Program of robotic missions,
Near its center is the crater Bürg, 40 kilometers in diameter.
West of Bürg, Lacus Mortis’s floor is broken
by a fascinating network of fault scarps and fractures known as straight rilles.
[Music fades]
Welcome back! I hope you are enjoying the program,
and I want to remind you that you can share your pictures and observations of the Moon,
and find out what other people are doing to celebrate
in our International Observe the Moon Night Flickr gallery
and through the hashtag #ObserveTheMoon on social media.
Each of us can observe the Moon and come away with a sense of wonder and awe.
We asked some lunar scientists what excites them most about the Moon,
and here’s what they had to say . . .
[Music]
Hi! My name is Aisha Khatib.
I’m a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Maryland.
I study lunar seismology, and especially deep moonquakes.
I’m really excited about the fact that we’re going forward to the Moon
and we are trying to answer some of these questions that we’ve had for the past 50 years.
What people might not know about the Moon is that the Moon is seismically active.
So there are a lot of seismic events that occur on the Moon.
So just as the
Earth has earthquakes, the Moon also has moonquakes.
And there are several different kinds of moonquakes
that we've been able to observe from the Apollo seismic data.
We have thermal moonquakes, we have shallow moonquakes.
And we also have something that are really, really mysterious called
deep moonquakes, which occur really deep down in the lunar interior.
And we think they are due to tidal stresses,
but we don't exactly know what causes these moonquakes.
And I'm really excited about seeing new data finally,
after only working with data that's 50 years old.
So that's what I'm excited about.
Hello, I'm Greg Schmidt, director of NASA's SSERVI,
the Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute.
So - one of the things that excites me so much is the discovery of volatiles.
So what what do I mean about that?
You know, what I mean is that we have discovered things
like water, you know, in the form of ice.
Now, how it got there, we don't know yet.
You know, a lot of people are still doing some pretty exciting research on that.
There are other kind of materials that are
that are preserved in these permanently shadowed
regions on the Moon that have been there for a really, really long time.
I mean, we're talking billions of years.
Why are they still there?
Because it's so very, very cold.
We're talking about some of the coldest places
in the solar system, this cold or perhaps even colder than than Pluto.
And and yet here they are on the Moon.
And so what's happened is that gases,
water, other things have come into these shadowed regions
and there's no sunlight for a billion years, perhaps more.
And they get trapped there.
And so what form they're in, how they're mixed in
with the lunar regolith, as we call it, which is basically the dirt on the Moon -
how that's all mixed together -
that's something that we need to find out. But it just presents
some really exciting research opportunities.
Hi, I'm Linden Wike and I'm about to enter my third year
as a graduate student at the University of Maryland studying planetary geology.
I'm very excited about the Moon right now because it serves as our first step
towards exploring more of the solar system and the universe as a whole.
But for the Artemis mission coming up, I'm very keen on seeing astronauts get to go
back to the Moon, forward to the Moon for the first time in 50 years.
So having astronauts go to the Moon is also very important to me
as it ties into my own research where I've been looking into
how to detect lava tubes as a resource for the astronauts
and their equipment to use as shelter. When they get to the Moon, when they say
we need something to take shelter - and I'll be helping to find those.
I'm Carlie Pieters.
I'm a planetary geoscientist.
I'm a
semi-retired professor from Brown University.
But I've been working on lunar exploration
and lunar science for decades, and I love it.
Remember the Earth and the Moon are related -
more related than any other planetary bodies.
And the Moon affects us
sometimes directly, sometimes
just because we can go out on a moonlit
night and smile.
It's an old friend. It's not going away.
It'll be there for much longer than we are.
And I love it.
Today, we’ve shown you a number of ways that we study the Moon at NASA, and why we’re doing it.
There is so much that we’re still learning from our past exploration, and so many things
that are happening now as we prepare for the next phase of lunar exploration with Artemis.
The Moon is the cornerstone for learning more about the solar system.
It’s a stepping stone for reaching Mars and beyond.
Our accomplishments at the Moon prove that nothing is beyond our reach.
It’s a symbol in the sky.
So remember - no matter who you are or where you’re from,
you have the potential to dream big and reach for the stars.
In that spirit, we bring you this next Moon-themed music video,
featuring singers Javier Colon and Matt Cusson.
I hope you enjoy it.
[music]
Have you ever wanted to fly among the stars? To see up close
what we could only see from afar. Come on let’s go
your dreams are possible. We can fly far away from here. Defying
gravity we’ll soar beyond the atmosphere. We will see things
we've never seen before. We’ll open up a door to a new world
and go explore the Moon and so much more.
[music]
I remember dreaming that I could take flight - to chase forever
into the heart of the night. Above it all,
the world's so small. We can fly far away from here.
Defying gravity we'll soar beyond the atmosphere.
We will see things we've never seen before - open up a door
to a new world and go explore, the Moon there's so much . . .
more that we have yet to see, much more to understand.
But the time is here and now. After all we're just
one speck of sand in this universe of ours.
We can fly far away from here. Defying gravity we'll soar
beyond the atmosphere ( yyyeah ).
We can see things we've never seen before.
We'll open up a door to a new world and go explore -
the Moon and so much more.
[music]
That concludes our program for this evening.
I’d like to thank the Solar System Exploration Division at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
and NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter for sponsoring International Observe the Moon Night.
I’d also like to thank our incredible supporters around the world,
and each and every one of you for watching
and for celebrating International Observe the Moon Night with us.
You can keep up with lunar science and exploration throughout the year on moon.nasa.gov,
and by following NASA Moon on social media,
and by subscribing to our International Observe the Moon Night newsletter.
You can sign up on moon.nasa.gov/observe
and that’s the same place you can find the Moon maps made special for today,
activity recommendations, and find out where people are observing the Moon around the world right now.
And add yourself to the map!
Thanks so much for joining us.
Wishing you clear skies – and see you next year!
[Music]