APOD: Chang'e 5 Mission Launch (2020 Nov 27)

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APOD: Chang'e 5 Mission Launch (2020 Nov 27)

Post by APOD Robot » Fri Nov 27, 2020 5:05 am

Image Chang'e 5 Mission Launch

Explanation: This Long March-5 rocket blasted off from the Wenchang launch site in southernmost Hainan province on Tuesday November 24, at 4:30 am Beijing Time, carrying China's Chang'e-5 mission to the Moon. The lunar landing mission is named for the ancient Chinese goddess of the moon. Its goal is to collect about 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds) of lunar material from the surface and return it to planet Earth, the first robotic sample return mission to the Moon since the Soviet Union's Luna 24 mission in 1976. The complex Chang'e-5 mission landing target is in the Oceanus Procellarum (Ocean of Storms). The smooth volcanic plain was also visited by the Apollo 12 mission in 1969. Chang'e-5's lander is solar-powered and scheduled to operate on the lunar surface during its location's lunar daylight, which will last about two Earth weeks, beginning around November 27. A capsule with the lunar sample on board would return to Earth in mid-December.

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Guiny Time

Re: APOD: Chang'e 5 Mission Launch (2020 Nov 27)

Post by Guiny Time » Fri Nov 27, 2020 8:49 am

Sorry sir, Wenchang launch site is in the easternmost Hainan porvince, but not southernmost.
You can check the google map, it shows very clearly;)

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Re: APOD: Chang'e 5 Mission Launch (2020 Nov 27)

Post by orin stepanek » Fri Nov 27, 2020 1:35 pm

IMG_20201124052235_9280_px1050.jpg

Interesting mission! :rocketship: I'd like to know how well plants do in Luna soil! :?
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Re: APOD: Chang'e 5 Mission Launch (2020 Nov 27)

Post by Chris Peterson » Fri Nov 27, 2020 2:34 pm

orin stepanek wrote: Fri Nov 27, 2020 1:35 pm I'd like to know how well plants do in Luna soil! :?
To be a bit technical, there's no such thing as "Luna soil". In order to be "soil", there has to be organic matter. None of that on the Moon! What they are returning is actually called regolith. I can imagine that once it's back on Earth, scientists might add organic material, water, and some organisms in order to convert it to soil, and see what sort of growth base it makes... something likely to be useful for any permanent bases on the Moon.
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Re: APOD: Chang'e 5 Mission Launch (2020 Nov 27)

Post by orin stepanek » Fri Nov 27, 2020 2:53 pm

Chris Peterson wrote: Fri Nov 27, 2020 2:34 pm
orin stepanek wrote: Fri Nov 27, 2020 1:35 pm I'd like to know how well plants do in Luna soil! :?
To be a bit technical, there's no such thing as "Luna soil". In order to be "soil", there has to be organic matter. None of that on the Moon! What they are returning is actually called regolith. I can imagine that once it's back on Earth, scientists might add organic material, water, and some organisms in order to convert it to soil, and see what sort of growth base it makes... something likely to be useful for any permanent bases on the Moon.

Thanks Chris; that's kind of what I was thinking about! If man wants a base on the moon; he might want to grow food there!
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Re: APOD: Chang'e 5 Mission Launch (2020 Nov 27)

Post by Chris Peterson » Fri Nov 27, 2020 3:05 pm

orin stepanek wrote: Fri Nov 27, 2020 2:53 pm
Chris Peterson wrote: Fri Nov 27, 2020 2:34 pm
orin stepanek wrote: Fri Nov 27, 2020 1:35 pm I'd like to know how well plants do in Luna soil! :?
To be a bit technical, there's no such thing as "Luna soil". In order to be "soil", there has to be organic matter. None of that on the Moon! What they are returning is actually called regolith. I can imagine that once it's back on Earth, scientists might add organic material, water, and some organisms in order to convert it to soil, and see what sort of growth base it makes... something likely to be useful for any permanent bases on the Moon.

Thanks Chris; that's kind of what I was thinking about! If man wants a base on the moon; he might want to grow food there!
Not that we necessarily require soil for that. Our most efficient farming techniques now operate in soil-free conditions. Such an approach is likely to be used on the Moon, as well.
Chris

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Re: APOD: Chang'e 5 Mission Launch (2020 Nov 27)

Post by neufer » Fri Nov 27, 2020 3:54 pm

Guiny Time wrote: Fri Nov 27, 2020 8:49 am
Sorry sir, Wenchang launch site is in the easternmost Hainan porvince, but not southernmost.

You can check the google map, it shows very clearly;)
  • "Southernmost" was a descriptor of Hainan province, itself:
"Hainan is the smallest and southernmost province of the People's Republic of China (PRC).
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Re: APOD: Chang'e 5 Mission Launch (2020 Nov 27)

Post by johnnydeep » Fri Nov 27, 2020 4:32 pm

neufer wrote: Fri Nov 27, 2020 3:54 pm
Guiny Time wrote: Fri Nov 27, 2020 8:49 am
Sorry sir, Wenchang launch site is in the easternmost Hainan porvince, but not southernmost.

You can check the google map, it shows very clearly;)
  • "Southernmost" was a descriptor of Hainan province, itself:
"Hainan is the smallest and southernmost province of the People's Republic of China (PRC).
Correct. And from the Wikipedia link for the Wenchang launch site, it just so happens to be China's fourth and southernmost space vehicle launch facility. (Not that the APOD text was trying to imply that however!)
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Re: APOD: Chang'e 5 Mission Launch (2020 Nov 27)

Post by neufer » Fri Nov 27, 2020 5:38 pm

Chris Peterson wrote: Fri Nov 27, 2020 2:34 pm
orin stepanek wrote: Fri Nov 27, 2020 1:35 pm
I'd like to know how well plants do in Luna soil! :?
To be a bit technical, there's no such thing as "Luna soil". In order to be "soil", there has to be organic matter. None of that on the Moon! What they are returning is actually called regolith.
  • Or it might just be abyssal plain silt with polymetallic nodules:
The complex Chang'e-5 mission landing target is in the Oceanus Procellarum (Ocean of Storms).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KREEP wrote:
<<KREEP, an acronym built from the letters K (the atomic symbol for potassium), REE (rare-earth elements) and P (for phosphorus), is a geochemical component of some lunar impact breccia and basaltic rocks. Its most significant feature is somewhat enhanced concentration of a majority of so-called "incompatible" elements (those that are concentrated in the liquid phase during magma crystallization) and the heat-producing elements, namely radioactive uranium, thorium, and potassium (due to presence of the radioactive 40K).

Before the mission of Lunar Prospector lunar satellite, it was commonly thought that these KREEP materials had been formed in a widespread layer beneath the crust. However, the measurements from the gamma-ray spectrometer on-board this satellite showed that the KREEP-containing rocks are primarily concentrated underneath the Oceanus Procellarum and the Mare Imbrium. This is a unique lunar geological province that is now known as the Procellarum KREEP Terrane.

Basins far from this province that dug deeply into the crust (and possibly the mantle), such as the Mare Crisium, the Mare Orientale, and the South Pole–Aitken basin, show only little or no enhancements of KREEP within their rims or ejecta. The enhancement of heat-producing radioactive elements within the crust (and/or the mantle) of the Procellarum KREEP Terrane is almost certainly responsible for the longevity and intensity of mare volcanism on the nearside of the Moon.>>
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_for_the_Re-Election_of_the_President wrote:
<<The Committee for the Re-election of the President (also known as the Committee to Re-elect the President), abbreviated CRP, but often mocked by the acronym CREEP, was, officially, a fundraising organization of United States President Richard Nixon's 1972 re-election campaign. Besides its re-election activities, "CREEP" employed money laundering and slush funds, and was involved in the Watergate scandal.>>
https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=creep wrote:
<<creep (v.) Old English creopan "to move the body near or along the ground as a reptile or insect does", from Proto-Germanic *kreupanan. From c. 1300 as "move secretly or to evade detection," also "move slowly, feebly, or timorously." In reference to imperceptible movements of things (soil, railway rails, etc.) from 1870s.>>
...........................................
<<creep (n.) 1818, "a creeping motion, act of creeping," from creep (v.). Meaning "imperceptible motion" is by 1813 in reference to coal mines, 1889 in geology. Meaning "despicable person" is by 1886, American English slang, perhaps from earlier sense of "a sneak" (1876). Creeper "a gilded rascal" is recorded from c. 1600, and the word also was used of certain classes of thieves, especially those who robbed customers in brothels. Mission creep (1994) is American English, originally military, "unconscious expansion of troops' role in a foreign operation.">>
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manganese_nodule wrote:
<<Polymetallic nodules, also called manganese nodules, are rock concretions on the sea bottom formed of concentric layers of iron and manganese hydroxides around a core. Nodule growth is one of the slowest of all known geological phenomena, on the order of a centimeter over several million years. As nodules can be found in vast quantities, and contain valuable metals, deposits have been identified as having economic interest. Polymetallic nodules are thought to have been a feature of the seas and oceans at least since the deep oceans oxidised in the Ediacaran period over 540 million years ago.

Most nodules are between 3 and 10 cm (1 and 4 in) in diameter, about the size of hen's eggs or potatoes. Their surface textures vary from smooth to rough. They frequently have botryoidal (mammilated or knobby) texture and vary from spherical in shape to typically oblate (flying saucer), sometimes prolate (American football), or are otherwise irregular. The bottom surface, buried in sediment, is generally rougher than the top due to a different type of growth.

Nodules lie on the seabed sediment, often partly or completely buried. They vary greatly in abundance, in some cases touching one another and covering more than 70% of the sea floor. The total amount of polymetallic nodules on the sea floor was estimated at 500 billion tons by Alan A. Archer of the London Geological Museum in 1981.

Polymetallic nodules were discovered in 1868 in the Kara Sea, in the Arctic Ocean of Siberia. During the scientific expeditions of HMS Challenger (1872–1876), they were found to occur in most oceans of the world. The largest deposits in terms of nodule abundance and metal concentration occur in the Clarion Clipperton Zone on vast abyssal plains in the deep ocean between 4,000 and 6,000 m. The International Seabed Authority estimates that the total amount of nodules in the Clarion Clipperton Zone exceeds 21 billions of tons (Bt), containing about 5.95 Bt of manganese, 0.27 Bt of nickel, 0.23 Bt of copper and 0.05 Bt of cobalt.

Those of greatest economic interest contain manganese (27–30%), nickel (1.25–1.5 %), copper (1–1.4 %) and cobalt (0.2–0.25 %). Other constituents include iron (6%), silicon (5%) and aluminium (3%), with lesser amounts of calcium, sodium, magnesium, potassium, titanium and barium, along with hydrogen and oxygen as well as water of crystallization and free water.

In the late seventies, two of the international joint ventures succeeded in collecting several hundred-ton quantities of manganese nodules from the abyssal plains of the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean. Significant quantities of nickel (the primary target) as well as copper and cobalt were subsequently extracted from this "ore" using both pyrometallurgical and hydrometallurgical methods. In the course of these projects, a number of ancillary developments evolved, including the use of near-bottom towed side-scan sonar array to assay the nodule population density on the abyssal silt whilst simultaneously performing a sub-bottom profile with a derived, vertically oriented, low-frequency acoustic beam.

The technology and experience developed during the course of this project were never commercialized because the last two decades of the 20th century saw an excess of nickel production. Kennecott Copper had explored the potential profits in manganese nodule mining and found that it was not worth the cost. On top of the environmental issues and the fact that the profits had to be shared, there was no cheap way to get the manganese nodules off the sea floor.

In recent times, nickel and other metal supply has needed to turn to higher cost deposits in order to meet increased demand, and commercial interest in nodules has revived. The renewed interest in mining nodules has led to increased concern and scrutiny regarding possible environmental impacts. >>
Art Neuendorffer

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