Nasa map to direct Chandrayaan-2 on moon

The first ever entire map of moon’s surface being developed by the US’s National Aeronautics & Space Administration (Nasa) will show India’s second unmanned lunar mission Chandrayaan-2 the method around on moon. The map, which is being ready by Nasa’s Goddard Space Flight Centre by using its lunar reconnaissance orbiter (LRO) spacecraft that is orbiting moon, will help India’s 2013 planned Chandrayaan-2 decide its precise landing point on the lunar surface, resource in the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) told DNA.

As a associate of the international lunar exploration working group, India is in line to obtain Nasa’s lunar map data when the work will be complete, for a time in 2013, in time for Chandrayaan-2 to be launched. The Chandrayaan-2 will comprise a 1,200 kg Russian intended and developed moon lander carrying a single 15 kg rover developed by Isro in collaboration with Russia. The lander will also carry a 35 kg scientific payload powered by solar panels, an equipment to analyse the lunar soil and notice the presence of water, a seismometer, a laser reflector, and will place a landing beacon to assist future moon landings.

According to them, the data being compiled will contain digital elevations and terrain maps which will act as fundamental reference for future scientific and human examination missions to the moon, beginning with Chandrayaan-2. “The data will be used by space scientists for a time of six months before being put into the free domain,” RR Navalgund, director of Ahmedabad-based Space Application Centre (SAC), told DNA. Chandrayaan-2 will pick up from where Chandrayaan-1 (October 2008-August 2009) left off after recording the discovery of water and water ice on moon, chiefly in moon’s polar region.

Asteroid to Fly by Within Moon's Orbit Thursday

A newly discovered asteroid, 2010 GA6, will safely fly by Earth this Thursday at 4:06 p.m. Pacific (23:06 U.T.C.). At time of closest approach 2010 GA6 will be about 359,000 kilometers (223,000 miles) away from Earth - about 9/10ths the distance to the moon. The asteroid, approximately 22 meters (71 feet) wide, was discovered by the Catalina Sky Survey, Tucson, Az.

"Fly bys of near-Earth objects within the moon's orbit occur every few weeks," said Don Yeomans of NASA's Near-Earth Object Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

NASA detects and tracks asteroids and comets passing close to Earth using both ground and space-based telescopes. The Near-Earth Object Observations Program, commonly called "Spaceguard," discovers these objects, characterizes a subset of them and plots their orbits to determine if any could be potentially hazardous to our planet.

JPL manages the Near-Earth Object Program Office for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., operates the Arecibo Observatory under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation in Arlington, Va.

For more information about asteroids and near-Earth objects, visit: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroidwatch