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Update for 12:58 pm EDT: NASA has announced the discovery of far more water on the moon than previously thought, including water in a sunlit region of the moon for the first time. Read our full story here.
Original story:
NASA wants you to get excited the moon – or more specifically, on a mysterious new scientific result that the agency intends to unveil today (October 26).
For more details, we’ll have to wait until a press conference at 12 pm EDT (1600 GMT) that day, which you can watch here at Space.com or directly through the agency website.
A statement from NASA The press conference announcement promises “an exciting new discovery on the moon” and references the agency’s ambitious Artemis program to land astronauts at the moon’s south pole in 2024. But the science itself comes from a long-standing observatory, the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), a German-American partnership that made its first flight in 2007.
Related: Photo from SOFIA, NASA’s flying telescope (gallery)
SOFIA is not an ordinary astronomy facility: it is an astronomy facility encased in a modified 747 jet that carries its instruments over most of the Earth’s atmosphere, which typically distorts ground observations. SOFIA’s roost on a jet offers some of the benefits of both ground and space observations: it’s relatively easy to update, but avoids atmospheric interference.
And because the observatory flies like an airplane, it’s easy to make observations of a specific portion of the sky during each of the observatory’s 10-hour flights. according to NASA. SOFIA’s instruments focus on infrared light, studying objects in our solar system and other galaxies.
Naseem Rangwala, project scientist for the SOFIA mission at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California, will be one of four speakers at Monday’s press conference. She will be joined by Paul Hertz, who heads NASA’s astrophysics division; Jacob Bleacher, the chief exploration scientist for the mission direction for human exploration and operations; and Casey Honniball, a postdoctoral fellow at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.
Although the science itself is new, the observations are likely not: SOFIA was founded in mid-March due to the coronavirus pandemic and only started flying again in mid-August, second NASA statements. SOFIA also has fought in budgetary process over the past decade, as presidential budget requests have repeatedly selected the project for cancellation; Congress has restored it every time.
Visit Space.com Monday for full coverage of NASA’s new moon discovery.
Email Meghan Bartels at [email protected] or follow her on Twitter @meghanbartels. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
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