{"id":67867,"date":"2019-02-24T17:05:00","date_gmt":"2019-02-24T15:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=67867"},"modified":"2019-02-17T08:49:53","modified_gmt":"2019-02-17T06:49:53","slug":"24-05-37","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=67867","title":{"rendered":"Can Israel\u2019s first lunar mission solve a magnetic mystery?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Israel21c\"<\/a>Can Israel\u2019s first lunar mission solve a magnetic mystery?<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

Abigail Klein Leichman<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

With SpaceIL\u2019s unmanned spacecraft set to lift off next week, the organization\u2019s Science Team has included instruments that will help unlock the secrets of the Moon\u2019s magnetic rocks.<\/strong><\/p>\n

SpaceIL\u2019s Beresheet craft was shipped from Israel to Cape Canaveral in January 2019 ahead of an expected February launch. Photo courtesy of SpaceIL<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

After eight years of preparations costing $100 million, the SpaceIL Israeli unmanned spacecraft \u201cBeresheet\u201d (Genesis) is tentatively scheduled to take off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, on February 21 and reach the rocky surface of the Moon six to eight weeks later following multiple orbits around Earth.<\/span><\/p>\n

Prof. Oded Aharonson of the Weizmann Institute of Science\u2019s Earth and Planetary Sciences Department hopes to be at the launch along with the other seven members of SpaceIL International Science Team he heads.<\/span><\/p>\n

The team members \u2013 from Israel, France and the United States \u2014 put scientific instruments aboard Beresheet to take measurements that they hope will shed new light on one of the basic enigmas about the Moon:<\/span><\/p>\n

Although rocks collected by Apollo missions were found to be magnetic, the Moon\u2019s iron core does not generate a global magnetic field as does the Earth\u2019s iron core.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOn Earth the rocks are magnetized from the global magnetic field, but how and when did the lunar rocks get magnetized? If we can measure the magnetism of these rocks, we can begin to understand how and when this magnetism arose,\u201d Aharonson tells ISRAEL21c.<\/span><\/p>\n

Weizmann Institute of Science Prof. Oded Aharonson and the Beresheet lunar craft at Israel Aerospace Industries. Photo: courtesy<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Scientists have various theories about how a temporary magnetic \u201cdynamo\u201d may have been generated on the Moon, perhaps from repeated asteroid impacts or from the long-ago dynamo action of the iron core that is now cool. But nobody knows how long that dynamo lasted.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAs we find younger and younger rocks \u2013 say 2 billion years old instead of 3 billion years old \u2014 that still have a magnetic signature, then we conclude the dynamo must have been alive for longer than previously hypothesized.<\/span><\/p>\n

We\u2019re motivated by this basic science question, to help us understand the universe around us,\u201d says Aharonson, who earned his PhD at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.<\/span><\/p>\n

Magnetometer expert Asaf Grosz from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev\u2019s department of electrical and computer engineering helped integrate a sensor built at UCLA onto the Beresheet spacecraft.<\/span><\/p>\n

This instrument will be calibrated by measuring the magnetic field of the craft itself while it is still on its way. Once Beresheet is in orbit around the Moon, the instrument will be able to detect and measure the lunar magnetic field in different areas.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe lander will employ this \u201cretroreflector\u201d to return a laser beam to its source on a NASA Moon Orbiter and thus determine Beresheet\u2019s precise location. Photo: courtesy<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

The craft also carries a unique array of mirrors provided by NASA for reflecting a laser beam of light precisely back in the direction of its source, a NASA Moon Orbiter (LRO), enabling the scientific team to track the position of Beresheet on the surface.<\/span><\/p>\n

The landing site was chosen carefully by the scientific team to ensure a smooth and safe touchdown in a suitable area for performing the scientific experiments and relaying results back to Earth.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had a lot of experience studying the surface of the Moon including its topography and temperatures, so we synthesized all this information and narrowed it down to a dozen candidate landing sites without a lot of rocks and slopes, from which we selected the primary site to aim for,\u201d says Aharonson. This area covers a few kilometers.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Israeli spacecraft will be launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. If it touches down successfully it will make Israel only the fourth country to land there after the US, the former Soviet Union and China.<\/span><\/p>\n

SpaceIL is an independent initiative started in 2011 by Yariv Bash, Kfir Damari and Yonatan Winetraub to compete in the Google LunarX Prize competition. Although the competition officially ended in March 2018 with no winners, SpaceIL and its donors decided to continue working toward the goal of landing on the moon.<\/span><\/p>\n

The 180-kilo Beresheet craft, built at Israel Aerospace Industries, was transported on January 17 in a cargo plane from Ben-Gurion Airport to Florida.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAfter eight years of hard work, our dream has come true: We finally have a spacecraft,\u201d said SpaceIL CEO Ido Anteby. \u201cShipping the spacecraft to the United States is the first stage of a complicated and historic journey to the moon. This is the first of many exciting moments, as we look forward to the forthcoming launch in Cape Canaveral.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n

Zawarto\u015b\u0107 publikowanych artyku\u0142\u00f3w i materia\u0142\u00f3w nie reprezentuje pogl\u0105d\u00f3w ani opinii Reunion’68,<\/em>
\nani te\u017c webmastera Blogu Reunion’68, chyba ze jest to wyra\u017anie zaznaczone.
\nTwoje uwagi, linki, w\u0142asne artyku\u0142y lub wiadomo\u015bci prze\u015blij na adres:
\n<\/em>webmaster@reunion68.com<\/span><\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Can Israel\u2019s first lunar mission solve a magnetic mystery? Abigail Klein Leichman With SpaceIL\u2019s unmanned spacecraft set to lift off next week, the organization\u2019s Science Team has included instruments that will help unlock the secrets of the Moon\u2019s magnetic rocks. SpaceIL\u2019s Beresheet craft was shipped from Israel to Cape Canaveral in January 2019 ahead of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[26,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67867"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=67867"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67867\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67880,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67867\/revisions\/67880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=67867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=67867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=67867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}