38 Matching Annotations
  1. Feb 2024
    1. Intuitive Machines is one of several small companies that NASA has hired to transport instruments that will perform reconnaissance on the moon’s surface ahead of the return of NASA astronauts there, planned for later this decade.

      Notable change.

    1. A region of the moon that’s at the center of a new international space race because it may contain water ice could be less hospitable than once thought,

      Moon knowledge is increasing all the time..

  2. Dec 2023
  3. Nov 2023
  4. Oct 2023
    1. The matter of the moon’s origin may seem like it should be settled science. We’ve examined it through telescopes, orbited it with a suite of spacecraft, scooped up its rocks and explored its surface in person.

      Very cool development!

  5. Jul 2023
  6. May 2023
  7. Feb 2023
  8. Jan 2023
    1. The game went on to be a minor hit in Japan, selling over 100,000 copies -- and was followed up by a Game Boy version which, thanks to Pokemon's popularity, sold over 300,000, launching the new franchise.

      Interesting facts about the launch of the Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons series in Japan. The first game for SNES sold about 100,000 copies. The game that most launched the series, however, was the simpler Game Boy game, which "sold over 300,000, launching the new franchise." This article credits the success of Pokemon in part with the high sales of Story of Seasons.

    2. "It wasn't all that easy to apply the concept of living life in the countryside to a game design document," said Yasuhiro Wada, creator of the Harvest Moon franchise. Wada had moved to Tokyo after being brought up in the countryside. Though he had no interest in returning to that environment, he finally understood its advantages compared to the big city, and thus wanted to turn that experience into a game. The problem was that he didn't know how. "I needed to nail the player experience," said Wada, but he had a problem: "How do you express the game system of living while working?"

      Yasuhiro Wada, the creator of Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons, explained that he first had the idea of creating a game where the player cared for cows from growing up in the Japanese countryside.

  9. Oct 2022
    1. Andere Sammlungen sind ihrem Verwendungszweck nie zugeführt worden. Der Germanist Friedrich Kittler etwa legte Karteikarten zu allen Farben an, die dem Mond in der Lyrik zugeschrieben worden sind. Das Buch dazu könnte jemand mit Hilfe dieser Zettel schreiben.

      machine translation (Google):

      Other collections have never been used for their intended purpose. The Germanist Friedrich Kittler, for example, created index cards for all the colors that were ascribed to the moon in poetry. Someone could write the book about it with the help of these slips of paper.

      Germanist Friedrich Kittler collected index cards with all the colors that were ascribed to the moon in poetry. He never did anything with his collection, but it has been suggested that one could write a book with his research collection.

  10. May 2022
  11. Apr 2022
  12. Mar 2022
    1. Yet the ancient Hebrews clearly adored them just like the other West Semites did. Ezekiel (8:16) recounts seeing people worshiping the sun in the Temple. We can infer this because the bible specifically condemns their worship, and we are told that Josiah took actions to stomp out the cult in the late First Temple period, the second half of the 7th century B.C.E. These actions included removing cult objects from the Temple itself (2 Kings 23:11).
    2. Jericho was probably at some point a center for moon worship. The city's name in Hebrew is "Yerikho"; and the Hebrew word for the moon is Yarekh, which other West Semitic languages use as the name of the moon god.
  13. Feb 2022
    1. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/an-ancient-greek-astronomical-calculation-machine-reveals-new-secrets/

      Overview and history of the Antikythera mechanism and the current state of research surrounding it.

      Antikythera mechanism found in diving expedition in 1900 by Elias Stadiatis. It was later dated between 60 and 70 BCE, but evidence suggests it may have been made around 205 BCE.

      Functions

      One of the primary purposes of the device was to predict the positions of the planets along the ecliptic, the plane of the solar system.

      The device was also used to track the positions of the sun and moon. This included the moon's phase, position and age (the number of days from a new moon). It also included the predictions of eclipses.

      Used to track the motions of the 5 known planets including 289 synodic cycles in 462 years for Venus and 427 synodic cycles in 442 years for Saturn.

      Risings and settings of stars indexed to a zodiac dial

      Definitions

      metonic cycle, a 19-year period over which 235 moon phases recur; named after Greek astronomer Meton, but discovered much earlier by the Babylonians. The Greeks refined it to a 76 year period.

      saros cycle, the 223 month lunar cycle which was used by the Babylonians to predict eclipses. A dial on the Antikythera mechanism was used to predict the dates of the solar and lunar eclipses using this cycle.

      synodic events: conjunctions with the sun and its stationary points

      People

      Archimedes - potentially the designer of an early version of the Antikythera mechanism

      Elias Stadiatis - diver who discovered the Antikythera mechanism

      Albert Rehm - German philologist who the numbers 19, 76 and 223 inscribed on fragments of the device in the early 1900s

      Derek J. de Solla Price, published Gears from the Greeks in 1974. Identified the gear train and developed a complete model of the gearing.

      Michael Wright - 3D x-ray study in 1990 using linear tomography; identified tooth counts of the gears and understood the upper dial on the back of the device

      Tony Freeth - author of article and researcher whose made recent discoveries.

    2. We added a mechanism for the variable motion of the sun and an epicyclic mechanism for calculating the “nodes” of the moon—the points at which the moon’s orbit cuts through the plane of the ecliptic, making an eclipse possible. Eclipses happen only when the sun is close to one of these nodes during a full or new moon. Medieval and renaissance astronomers called a double-ended pointer for the nodes of the moon a “dragon hand.” The epicyclic gearing for this dragon hand also exactly explained a prominent bearing on one of the spokes that had previously appeared to have no function.

      The nodes of the moon are the points at which the moon's orbit cuts through the plane of the ecliptic. These nodes make an eclipse possible and they happen only when the sun is close to one of these nodes during either a full or a new moon.

      Medieval and renaissance astronomers called a double-ended pointer for the nodes of the moon a "dragon hand".

    3. the moon has variable motion because it has an elliptical orbit: when it is farther from Earth, it moves more slowly against the stars; when it is closer, it moves more quickly. The moon’s orbit, however, is not fixed in space: the whole orbit rotates in a period of just under nine years.
  14. Jan 2022
  15. May 2019
  16. Dec 2018
    1. when seismometers left on the moon by Apollo astronauts recorded a spike in impacts during the Taurid swarm.

      More on the impact of Taurid meteors on the moon in 1975 here.

    1. Frank Borman

    2. The first color image of the earth, taken by the Apollo 8 astronauts in 1968

      It's impossible (for me) to conceive of the distance between the earth and the moon. Three days journey. We're so spoiled by our "fast" travel.

    1. Apollo 8 was the first moonshot. No human being had ever been beyond low Earth orbit. Even the Apollo 8 astronauts — Frank Borman, James Lovell Jr. and Bill Anders — struggled to wrap their heads around what they were about to do.

      So amazing that this happened at all!

  17. Apr 2018
    1. “We often discussed his notions on objective reality. I recall that during one walk Einstein suddenly stopped, turned to me and asked whether I really believed that the moon exists only when I look at it.”
  18. Aug 2017
    1. The powerful movement causes a series of whirlpools to form, called maelstroms due to their extraordinary force.

      This must be how the (now closed) ride at Disney got it's name.

  19. May 2017
    1. Here stood he in the dark, his sharp sword out, KL II.i.38  Mumbling of wicked charms, conjuring the moon KL II.i.39.1  To stand auspicious mistress.
  20. Mar 2017
    1. In 1671, Giovanni Cassini gazed through a telescope at Saturn, and discovered a number of incredible wonders: the famed gap in its rings, detailed band structures in its atmosphere, and a number of moons.

      Love to read about Saturn!

  21. Feb 2017
    1. According to the Washington Post, this week acting NASA administrator Robert Lightfoot sent a letter to employees saying he’d instructed the top NASA official for human spaceflight to study whether NASA could put astronauts on a lunar orbiter called EM-1—scheduled for launch in 2018.

      Wow! 2018 is soon!

    2. In fact, some space enthusiasts even hope he’ll use the rally to announce a mission to the moon.

      Might be cool!

  22. Jan 2017
    1. The idea that the popularity of the moon hoax led to a rise in the Sun's circulation has become a standard part of the story of the hoax. However, it turns on its head what actually happened and obscures the historical significance of the event. In fact, as Mario Castagnaro (2009) has argued, it was the Sun's already high circulation and broad reach that ensured the success of the moon hoax — not the other way around.

      Circulation Powered Hoax

      The Moon Hoax was a result of the high circulation of the Sun, not the other way around.

    2. The Sun's high circulation was made possible by its use of steam-powered printing presses. Such presses, which had only recently become available, allowed papers to print tens of thousands of copies at a cheap rate, thereby broadening their readership and turning them into a medium of truly mass communication. In addition, the Sun used an innovative means of distribution that further broadened its reach — newsboys who sold issues on the street, shouting out the headlines for everyone to hear. The Sun was the first paper anywhere to use newsboys to sell copies. It had started using them in 1833, less than two years before the moon hoax, so their presence on city streets was still a relatively new part of the urban environment.

      Steam Powered Printing

      The Moon Hoax was a result of new technologies and distribution platforms.

  23. Nov 2013
    1. good to see others want to move highlights/annotation between Moon+ Reader Pro and other systems like Calibre