{"id":10244,"date":"2013-09-07T06:07:37","date_gmt":"2013-09-07T06:07:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/unmanned-moon-mission-lifts-off\/"},"modified":"2013-09-07T06:07:19","modified_gmt":"2013-09-07T06:07:19","slug":"unmanned-moon-mission-lifts-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/unmanned-moon-mission-lifts-off\/","title":{"rendered":"Unmanned Moon mission lifts off"},"content":{"rendered":"

{{The US space agency (Nasa) has launched its latest mission to the Moon.<\/p>\n

The unmanned LADEE probe lifted off from the Wallops rocket facility on the US east coast on schedule at 23:27 local time (03:27 GMT on Saturday).}}<\/p>\n

Its $280m (\u00a3180m) mission is to investigate the very tenuous atmosphere that surrounds the lunar body.<\/p>\n

It will also try to get some insights on the strange behaviour of moondust, which appears on occasions to levitate high above the surface.<\/p>\n

In addition, LADEE will test a new laser communications system that Nasa hopes at some point to put on future planetary missions. Lasers have the capacity to transmit data at rates that dwarf conventional radio connections.<\/p>\n

LADEE stands for Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer.<\/p>\n

Collisionless environment
\nIts programme scientist, Sarah Noble, says the mission is likely to surprise a lot of people who have been brought up to believe the Moon has no atmosphere.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt does; it\u2019s just it’s really, really thin,\u201d she told reporters.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s so thin that the individual molecules are so few and far between that they don\u2019t interact with each other; they never collide.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s something we call an exosphere. The Earth has an exosphere as well, but you have to get out past where the International Space Station orbits before you get to this condition that we can consider an exosphere. At the Moon, it happens right at the surface.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

{agencies}<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{{The US space agency (Nasa) has launched its latest mission to the Moon. The unmanned LADEE probe lifted off from the Wallops rocket facility on the US east coast on schedule at 23:27 local time (03:27 GMT on Saturday).}} Its $280m (\u00a3180m) mission is to investigate the very tenuous atmosphere that surrounds the lunar body. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2000048110,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[101],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-10244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science-technology","tag-internationl","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000048110,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton10244.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton10244.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton10244.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton10244.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton10244.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton10244.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10244\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000048110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10244"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=10244"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=10244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}