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London, UK (PTI) Nov 24, 2008 Britain is set to launch its maiden moon mission to study the phenomenon of mysterious moonquakes, weeks after India's spacecraft Chandrayaan-1 successfully entered the lunar orbit. The 100-million-pound unmanned mission 'MoonLITE' would aim to understand the cause of mysterious quakes that vibrate through the lunar rock and put it into the satellite's orbit before firing a series of probes into the moon's surface, the daily Telegraph reported on Sunday. The report said that the launch of Moon Lightweight Interior and Telecommunications Experiment or MoonLITE, will be announced by science minister Lord Drayson next month after which engineers would work on the technical designs with an aim to launch the satellite between 2012 and 2014. Backed by NASA, the spacecraft would also examine the chemical composition of the rocks and even search for water on the moon's surface. The existence of moonquakes has puzzled scientists as the moon does not have the tectonic plate activity that causes quakes on the earth. "The moon still holds an awful lot of secrets. Most of what we know about the moon is from a relatively small area on the nearside of the moon and we have no samples or data from the far side," the daily quoted Ian Crawford, from the school of Earth sciences at Birkbeck College, University of London. Crawford was one of the scientists who first proposed the MoonLITE mission, which would fire four suitcase-sized penetrator probes into different points around the lunar surface.
Source: Press Trust of India Share This Article With Planet Earth
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Racers Get Ready! NASA's Great Moonbuggy Registration Begins
Huntsville AL (SPX) Nov 21, 2008Registration is open for NASA's 16th annual Great Moonbuggy Race, taking place April 3-4, 2009, in Huntsville, Ala. Each year, NASA challenges high schools and colleges across the country and the world to design and build lightweight, human-powered moonbuggies. |
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