On a clear night in July of 1609, English polymath Thomas Harriot pointed his “Dutch perspective glass” toward the crescent moon. The crude lunar map he sketched from his observations dates him as the earliest person known to have used a telescope to study a celestial object, beating Galileo Galilei by nearly four months.Over subsequent years Harriot produced remarkable drawings showing the locations of the moon’s craters and what he believed to be its oceans andcoastlines.
His cartography was not bettered for decades. So why does Galileo enjoy lasting fame while Harriot has been all but forgotten?“The unfortunate thing is that Harriot never got around to publishing his maps,” says Stephen Pumfrey, a professor of history at Lancaster University in England, “and it was definitely a publish-or-perish situation.” Since Harriot never publicly claimed to have been the first to observe the moon’s surface in detail, Galileo got the credit.
Historians
debate what made Harriot so reticent. In a paper published in February
[pdf], Oxford professor Allan Chapman argues that Harriot was well-off
and “was not an agenda-or career-driven individual,” whereas Galileo
was determined to rise in station through his science. But Pumfrey also
notes that both of Harriot’s wealthy patrons ended up imprisoned in the
Tower of London, which may have discouraged him from crowing about his
controversial discoveries. “Harriot had no one to protect him, because
his patrons were worried about having their heads chopped off,” Pumfrey
says. An exhibition of Harriot’s maps opens on July 23 at the Science
Museum in London.
By Jim Ostrowski
Evidence from the early space
probes that Lunar gravitational gradient calculations were possibly flawed: The
United States and the Soviet Union started to send probes to the Moon in the
late fifties. Most of these initial probes met with miserable failure. It is
posited here that the reason for these early failures were due to a
miscalculation of the lunar gravitational gradient. While is would appear that
the calculated mass of the moon was accurate enough to ...India claim "signs of life" on Moon
In a controversial story this week the Indian space agency have claimed that their Chandrayaan-1 space probe detected signs of organic matter on the lunar surface inNovember. Research to confirm the find isongoing."Scientists at the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) are on the brink of a path-breaking discovery. . They may have found signs of life in some form or the other on theMoon." View: Full Article | Source: DNAI...NASA’s BIGGEST Cover-up?
A linguistic analysis has confirmed that Neil Armstrong did miss out the "a" in his "one small step for man" speech when he first set foot on the Moon in 1969, it is thought he missed out the letter due to the pressure of the trip."NeilArmstrong missed out an "a" and did not say "one small step for a man" when he set foot on the Moon in 1969, a linguistic analysis has confirmed." View: Full Article | Source: BBC News...Did Earths moon form around Mercury ?
A controversial new theory has been proposed suggesting that our moon didn"t form around the Earth but instead formed in orbit around Mercury and later migrated out until it was caught by Earth"sgravity and roped in to orbit."The moon may have been adopted by our planetinstead of descended from it. . If a new twist on a decades-old theory is right, conditions in the early solar system suggest the moon formed inside Mercury"s or...Was the First Moonlanding Fake?
India"s Chandrayaan-1 has found tunnels below the surface of the Moon that could one day be a home to humans.Indian space officials have said that the tunnels are thought to have been formed by lava and could offer the perfect shelter for humans in the futurelooking to live on the Moon.
India"s Chandrayaan-1 mission has identified tunnels below the surface of theMoon, a top space scientist said on Wednesday and maintained that human habitation could be possible in those "tubes" in the...Much more water found in lunar rocks
A new study of rocks returned by the Apollo missions has revealed that the moon has far more water on it than thought.Scientists found 100 times more water existed within the moon"s minerals than was previously believed and that there could be enough water on the moon to fill the Great Lakes two-and-a-halftimes over.
The Moon might be much wetter than previously thought, a groupof scientists has said. . A US-led team analysed the mineral apatite in lunar rocks picked up by the Apollo s...Where did the Moon Came From?
When did the moon first
accompany our earth? Perhaps it has been looking at the earth long before human
beings appeared on earth.Twenty-six years have passed since the first moon
landing by the American astronauts from the Apollo 11 mission to the moon on
July 19, 1969, yet human beings are no wiser than before about the moon. On the
contrary, scientists are now perplexed by the data gathered by the instruments
left on the moon. When we look at the moon at night, we a have familiar...
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Mysterious Lunar Effects of Life on Earth
Lunar Anomalies indicate an "Artificial" Moon
India claim "signs of life" on Moon
NASA’s BIGGEST Cover-up?
Armstrongs poetic slip on Moon
Was the First Moonlanding Fake?
Tunnels on Moon can habitate humans
Where did the Moon Came From?
