While ISS astronauts do a spacewalk this Christmas eve, I thought that this would be the best tribute I could make for them, and for all of my readers, contributors, and moderators.
Audio and some stunning new video follow.
![480px-NASA-Apollo8-Dec24-Earthrise[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/480px-nasa-apollo8-dec24-earthrise1.jpg?quality=83)
They recited:
Bill Anders
“We are now approaching lunar sunrise, and for all the people back on Earth, the crew of Apollo 8 has a message that we would like to send to you.
‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.
And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.'”
Jim Lovell
“And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.”
Frank Borman
And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.
And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.’
And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas – and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth.”
Here is the historic audio clip of the text above:
That happened 45 years ago today, when the Apollo 8 astronauts suddenly noticed the Earth “rising” over the lunar horizon. Despite all of the planning for the mission, this event was a complete surprise, and they scrambled to load color film and get cameras ready.
NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio has created a marvelous recreation of the event, using 3D modeling, original audio from the onboard recorder, and the actual photographs of the moment on December 24, 1968, when the astronauts on the Apollo 8 mission orbiting the moon were unexpectedly confronted with an “Earthrise” and worked together to snap some of the most viewed photography in history. This is an excerpt from the full public-domain video, narrated by the Apollo mission historian Andy Chaikin:
The full visualization is here.
In 2007, an HD camera aboard Japan’s Kaguya satellite videotaped earth ‘rising’ and ‘setting.’ Set to music by Peter Rundquist, the images bring home the lonely, extraordinary nature of this “pale blue dot.”
h/t to Andrew Revkin for that video
bob droege says:
December 25, 2013 at 8:38 pm
But between successive full moons seen from earth, the moon has rotated 30 degrees, yet the same side of the moon is fully lit, The only way for this to happen is if the moon rotates.
Maybe I should have said if the moon doesn’t rotate, we would see what’s called the dark side of the moon, which isn’t dark.
I fully agree now. But to make the point even clearer, I would say that the full moon should be checked again 6 months later. If it is completely the same, then the moon spins on its axis once every 27.32 days. If it is completely different, then the moon does not spin on its axis at all.
And a Merry Christmas to all!
@u.s.(uk)
“‘cept it is not.
Or there would be tracks.
You think they brushed out all the tracks except the left front ?
Why ?”
No, I don’t think that — why would I? Seems to be like that huge traverse crane at Langley Research Center could offer an explanation.
Gerald Kelleher says:
December 25, 2013 at 12:34 pm
Well you brought it here. You’re trying to force upon us that because the moon’s rotation is equal to its orbital period that it’s not rotating. Save it for April.
Better yet, consider Mercury. It spends a good part of its year with one side facing the sun, but as it approaches aphelion its rotational inertia takes over and … whoopsie … it does a half turn before tidal force (libration) once again overtakes that inertia. This leaves it swinging through perihelion with its opposite side facing the sun. So on average it rotates one and a half times per orbit.
I shudder to think how you might interpret that. Perhaps you would argue that it rotates through half its orbit, but not the other half. Eh? Or something similarly foolish?
REPLY: Here’s your photo.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Wow, just wow. Really an amazing photo.
Apollo 17:
http://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/apollo40/index.html
That sure looks like rover tracks behind the vehicle in several pics. Watch the video for a earth – moon shot as Apollo 17 orbits the moon.
These are a tiny fraction of the photographs available. From the moment they took off through splashdown there are recordings and film.
Look before one leaps.
bruce1337 says:
December 25, 2013 at 9:06 pm
“No, I don’t think that — why would I? Seems to be like that huge traverse crane at Langley Research Center could offer an explanation.”
=============
I win.
Occam’s razor.
Saturn V rocket versus Langley crane.
(with moon orbit the goal).
Scott Scarborough says:
December 25, 2013 at 8:41 pm
then there are 366 days in a year because the “tethered situation described above you count as 1, not 0!
Scott Scarborough says:
December 25, 2013 at 8:49 pm
What I am trying to say is that if you say there are 365 days in a year because the earth rotates 365 times per revolution then you are defining a rotation in such a way that says that the moon does not rotate relative to the earth.
Let us for the moment assume a year is exactly 365.000 days and not 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes and 45 seconds. If you want to add a day and make it 366.000 days, then what would happen if July 1 came every 366 days instead of every 365 days? If July 1 is the height of your summer, then after 183 years, July 1 would come when it would normally be January 1.
An appropriate frame of reference is to assume someone at the North Star has a super powerful telescope and views the earth and the moon. That person would conclude the earth rotates once every 23 hours, 56 minutes and 4.1 seconds. The moon rotates once every 27.32 days.
Due to the revolution around the sun the period from full moon to full moon for an observer on earth is 29 days, 12 hours and 44 minutes. And the period from noon to noon is 24 hours.
But are the lunar rover tire tracks missing?
Four wheels: the two far-side (right hand) wheels can’t be seen.
The left front wheel tracks are present, but have been “stepped on” by the more-clearly visible foot print, which pushed up that little mound of loose dust where the print is clearly visible. Yes, the foot
The left rear wheel DOES have chevron wheel tracks visible!
noaaprogrammer says:
December 25, 2013 at 8:08 pm
What’s 4.7t? ton? tonne? Either way, close to 4700 kg. From F = ma, a = 16,000 / 4700 = 3.4 m/s^2. Please display your work and a sketch with a scale. Keep in mind the camera was a video camera with a spinning disk color system, so it transmitted separate red, green, and blue images, hence the “confetti” in the launch debris and color fringing on slower movement.
Give the ascent engine didn’t have a clear path to the ground (I assume the exhaust went on the descent engine parts), pressure buildup may have added some force the the underside of the ascent module, though the acceleration looks smooth enough to me.
bruce1337 says:
December 25, 2013 at 8:36 am
44 years of technological progress, and modern heavy lift vehicles still don’t come anywhere close to the Saturn V’s capabilities.
I wasn’t aware that during those 44 years there was a need for such lift capability – should such have been developed at enormous expense for the Hell of it?
Gareth Phillips says: December 25, 2013 at 9:30 am
I think it is important to define two words. We tend to mix up orbit and rotate or spin. The moon orbits the earth, to keep it’s face toward us it must turn on an axis relative to the earth, my son has just pointed out that if there were thread running through the moon from pole to pole it would move on that thread, so in theory you can say yes, it rotates, but if you consider a table tennis ball on the outer edge of an LP on a record deck, one side painted to face the centre, when the record turns, that same side will always face the centre as does the moon to the earth. But does the ball rotate relative to itself in the same way as does the earth? It depends on your stance!
What you say about “stance” is partially correct. Take a perfectly round ball and draw a line on the outside of the ball that corresponds to one-half of the circumference of the ball. Drill a hole through the ball such that (a) the drilled hole passes through the geometrical center of the ball and (b) the drilled hole exists the ball at each end of the half-circumference line. Insert a narrow straight pin through the hole in the ball such that the diameter of the pin is infinitesimally smaller than the diameter of the hole drilled in the ball. Prevent the ball from moving up or down relative to the pin by rigidly attaching small washers to the pin just outside the ball. Assume the friction between the pin and the ball and the friction between the washers and the ball are negligible–i.e., you can rotate the pin in your fingers without causing the ball to rotate.
Set up a turn table (or to use your term, an LP) whose planar surface is horizontal and that can rotate about a vertical axis perpendicular to the LP’s planar surface. Place the LP on a table at rest (no translational or rotational motion) with respect to a room that is at rest with respect to an inertial reference frame. Paint a radial straight line from the center of the LP to the outer rim. The LP’s vertical rotation axis and the horizontal radial line form a plane. Just inside the outer rim and on the LP radial line, stick the pin of the pin/ball assembly vertically into the LP. Orient the pin such that before the LP begins rotating, the half-circumference line painted on the ball is in the plane formed by the intersection of the LP vertical rotation axis and the LP horizontal radial line.
Now start rotating the LP about its vertical rotation axis. Because the pin is rigidly fixed with respect to the LP (i.e., stuck into the LP), the same “face” of the pin will always point towards the center of the LP. However, because there is no friction (and hence no torque) acting on the ball, the ball will not rotate–i.e., as the LP turns, the half circumference line will leave the LP vertical axis/radial line plane. To an observer attached to the LP (i.e., rotating with the LP), the LP will appear to be stationary, but the ball will appear to rotate. To an observer sitting in the room that is at rest with respect to the inertial reference frame, the LP and the pin will appear to rotate, and although the pin and hence the center of the ball will appear to travel in a circle, the half-circumference line will not rotate–i.e., the orientation of plane that encompasses the entire half-circumference line will remain fixed.
Thus, to an observer at rest with respect to the rotating LP, both the LP and the pin (but not the ball) appear to be motionless (both translationally and rotationally), while the ball appears to be rotating. To an observer at rest with respect to the room, the LP appears to be rotating, the pin appears to be both rotation and moving translationally, but although the ball exhibits translational motion, the ball does not appear to rotate.
Bottom line, when you say the moon doesn’t rotate about its axis, you’re correct relative to an observer at rest with respect to the rotating Earth. But you’re incorrect with respect to an observer at rest with respect to an inertial reference frame. The connotation of rotation or spin can be debated ad infinitum. As I understand it, however, most physicists define/measure rotation/spin relative to an inertial reference frame. They do this because the laws of physics are invariant with respect to all inertial reference frames, but not with respect to all non-inertial reference frames, and rotating reference frames are non-inertial reference frames.
Scott Scarborough says:December 25, 2013 at 8:41 pm
To the moon rotation people,
The moon acts as though it were tethered to the earth with one side of it always facing the earth. Suppose the same was true with the earth to the sun. How many days would there be in a year? The answer: 0. The sun would always shine on one side of the earth and never on the other… days wolud cease to exist.
__________________________________
Ok Scott, but the Sun in fact does not always shine on the one side of the moon, does this not indicate the moon is rotating?
bruce1337 says:
December 25, 2013 at 4:41 pm
I don’t have a perfect answer, but I’m disturbed at how little work you’ve done to research your claim. I trust you know that the tires on the rover are a metal mesh and when one fender was damaged on the Apollo 17 mission people were afraid they’d have to forego much of the buggy travel that was critical to the mission.
From the photo, it appears to me that one astronaut drove the buggy to the stopping point then dismounted. I’ll claim that the low speed while stopping stirred up the surface a little, but the dust fell back onto the track adequately covering it from the low camera angle. The astronaut disembarked, and the relatively high pressure as his boot rocked on the dust left footprints but didn’t raise dust to obscure them.
Here’s what I want you to do. I spent hours this morning going through the raw NASA photos of Apollo 17. I want you to do the same with Apollo 15. Find the original image for this photo, let’s see how it was cropped, and look at the other photos of the buggy to see how the tracks change with lighting and vehicle speed.
A problem with ignorant “moon deniers” is that they make some half baked claim with essentially no support and no effort to resolve the quandary themselves. I suspect a lot just parrot claims they’ve seen elsewhere and are indeed completely ignorant about the hundreds of other relevent photos that are readily available.
At least from my earlier posts you can readily find the Apollo 15 photos (and other missions) and do a semi-decent comparision. If you aren’t familiar with the tires on the buggy (then I have no business answering your question), but do learn about that.
BTW, there’s movie footage of the Apollo 17 buggy being driven without the fender – it’s quite convincing that the fender is a critical piece of equipment.
And do try to come up with a better than 28 word critique. My reply is 323, let’s see a 500 word analysis supporting your concern.
Hi, Ric Werme — re: yours at 6:22pm, I’m the one who was remiss in not acknowledging all your fine work for the truth above about lunar missions and the moon. I was just lazy about THAT. Thank you, so much, (you and several others above, too) for taking so much of your day to educate us. Your excellent instruction was likely wasted on a couple of the fools above, but, it has made this thread a treasure trove for those genuinely seeking truth. WAY — TO — GO!
I’m sorry that your mom is no longer with you. What a cool dad you have! A dad to be proud of. Your advice to Snowsnake was right on target.
Always enjoy your posts,
Janice
******************************************
Oh, Mindert Eiting, my dear Dutch ally, we have had a major communication breakdown. It’s too unimportant to keep on about it, here, but, one thing is very important and that is that you need to know that I was not making fun of your name.
Re: “Mindert Eiting……??????”
Translation: “Mindert Eiting, what in the world did you mean by that post?” (said with a quizzical smile and a slight tilt of the head)
If it had been: “M.E. …. ???!!!”
Translation: “M.E., how in the world could you say such a thing?!” (said with eyes wide open)
And (I could go on and on, heh, just one more) if it had been: “M.E. (ahem)!!”
Translation: “M.E., “I beg your pardon!” (pounded out on the keyboard with a slight frown)
And, bear in mind, that ANY of the above could be said only half-seriously, mostly for dramatic effect… . SOMETHING THAT I LOVE TO DO!!!
#(:))
That you speak (at least) two languages is a fine accomplishment. You have my admiration for that.
Gezegend Kerstfeest! (thanks to Mr. Vermeer above)
Ben D. says:
December 25, 2013 at 10:12 pm
Actually, it doesn’t. As the moon revolves around the Sun, a non-rotating Moon will have a year-long “day” and all longitudes on the Moon will be illuminated.
Sidereal time and mean solar time.
There are only two references to “sidereal” above. A “sidereal day” on Earth is shorter than a “mean solar day” that we use for tracking time. A solar day is the time from noon one day to noon the next. That turns out to vary throughout the year (see Equation of Time on the web) so we use the mean time, derived from the time from one vernal equinox to the next. That varies a little bit too, there are lots of tiny effects people can track.
A sidereal day is the time it takes for the Earth to rotate 360 degrees. A solar day is that time plus a little more time to make up for the Earth’s motion along its orbit around the Sun. That takes 365.2422 solar days, so the Earth has rotate almost one degree more for each solar day. That takes about four minutes.
If you looked at the night sky at the same sidereal time, you would see the stars in the same position night after night.
The arguments about strings and stuff are missing the point – they all refer some definition of a day that is not 360 degrees rotation relative the stars. Until people internalize these concepts, the discussion will stay confused with people talking about solar time being answered by people talking about sidereal time.
Gerald Kelleher says:
December 25, 2013 at 2:57 pm
Blah, blah, more quotations.
So, having specifically requested that you define the “spinning” that you say is not happening, without diverging into more pages of quotes, you respond by NOT defining “spinning” and providing two more pages of waffle and quotations.
OK, I think you’ve firmly established that you can not even define the “spinning” that you claim the moon is not doing. That ends that little side-show.
However, the link you keep pushing has pointed the answer to something that has been bugging me for nearly a year, that I’d been overlooking.
http://books.google.ie/books?id=OdCJAS0eQ64C&pg=PA80&lpg#v=onepage&q&f=false
My spectral analyses of various climate data were persistently off by a small but persistent amount. Harmonics of the annual cycle were just a little longer than they “should” be. I’d checked it over and over and it was still there. I’d derived an estimated correction factor for my frequency axis.
I’d found an oscillation in Arctic ice cover very close to the perigee period.
( 27.6163-27.55455)/ 27.55455 = +0.224%
Now in view of that link, I note:
365.242/366.242=1.0027
There are 365.242 cycles of luminosity in an Earth year. However the Earth rotates 366.242 times, so when working to that level of precision we must not confuse length of day with period of rotation, which is what I was carelessly doing. Inertial effects like tides require an inertial frame of reference. If the lunar perigee cycle is given as 27.545 days, it will have an inertial effect slightly longer in units of rotational period.
So the Earth “spins” 366.242 times per year and the moon “spins” once per month.
Thanks for the link.
UK (US): Check your false premise re: ascent module height after 1 sec which I presume you measured by eyeball off of a youtube video. Lotsa Math at these links.
http://www.braeunig.us/apollo/LM-ascent.htm
http://www.braeunig.us/apollo/LM-ascent.pdf
Imagine an observant being who lives only on the far side of the moon and has no knowledge of the Earth.
As the moon moves along its complex path around the sun, the observer sees the Sun and the “fixed stars” gradually change position so that , in a simplified sense, approximately each half month he sees sunlight moving across his “skyline” and the other half month sees stars gradually moving across his “skyline”
I think that he would conclude that the Moon rotates.
I guess it never occurs to certain folks that the design, engineering and etc. were probably more feasible than pulling off such a wide-ranging and easy-to-expose Hoax!
Re landing hoax, watch this video
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=P6MOnehCOUw
Merry Christmas (belated, I apologise)
Thanks, Janice. I did not read all comments. So that little joke still may be missing about a tribal medicine man who got in 1968 from his people the message that Americans went for the first time to the moon. ‘For the first time?’, he said, ‘I do it every night’. You too ‘Gezegend Kerstfeest’.
Thanks, Anthony! I hope everyone enjoyed a very Merry Christmas and will have a prosperous New Year! From the looks of things, the Hockey Team may not have quite as good of a 2014 as we are likely to enjoy!
http://climatism.wordpress.com/2013/11/25/the-truth-about-the-global-warming-agenda-by-former-nasa-climatologist/
Ric Werme says:
December 25, 2013 at 10:42 pm
Ben D. says:
December 25, 2013 at 10:12 pm
Scott Scarborough says:December 25, 2013 at 8:41 pm
To the moon rotation people,
The moon acts as though it were tethered to the earth with one side of it always facing the earth. Suppose the same was true with the earth to the sun. How many days would there be in a year? The answer: 0. The sun would always shine on one side of the earth and never on the other… days wolud cease to exist.
__________________________________
Ok Scott, but the Sun in fact does not always shine on the one side of the moon, does this not indicate the moon is rotating?
Actually, it doesn’t. As the moon revolves around the Sun, a non-rotating Moon will have a year-long “day” and all longitudes on the Moon will be illuminated.
__________________________________
Sorry for being possibly obtuse Ric, but I understand the moon actually rotates approx 12 times a year relative to the Sun, ie. one who lived on the moon would experience near month long days.
Galileo’s observation is essentially correct in that once men get a conclusion into their heads, and a spinning moon is exceptionally stupid and even more silly than the idea of human control over planetary temperatures,they will do everything possible to support that conclusion to the point that they will override the normal physical constraints between reason and experience.If your minds won’t accept that the moon doesn’t spin as it orbits the Earth by virtue of what your eyes are telling you then what can be said for topics such as climate which is seriously more complex and do not allow for visualization so easily.
You remind me of what Copernicus said about unfortunate people who add an unnecessary conclusion like an irritating notion that the moon spins when it can be seen not to –
“They are just like someone including in a picture hands, feet, head, and other limbs from different places, well painted indeed, but not modeled from the same body, and not in the least matching each other, so that a monster would be produced from them rather than a man. Thus in the process of their demonstrations, which they call their system, they are found either to have missed out something essential, or to have brought in something inappropriate and wholly irrelevant, which would not have happened to them if they had followed proper principles.” Copernicus
You see, all the arguments needed to get rid of the idea of human control over planetary temperatures would come from the same type of people who can quickly dispense with the nonsense of a ‘spinning moon’ so again,this thread is highly instructive for a number of reasons.
For people who are so concerned about planetary temperature fluctuations yet the mainstream view is that 24 hour days and rotations fall out of step even though each and every one of us wakes up to another day and rotation with all its effects where temperatures rise and fall within a 24 hour period in response to the rotation of the Earth.