BellaOnline Forums Education Astronomy Five Astronomical Non-Events of 2018 *new*

Every year has its astronomical events - and its non-events. A non-event may be science that needs more evidence. However it's usually something for which the only "evidence" is in the mind of its creator. Here are five from 2018.

Five Astronomical Non-Events of 2018

A cosmic event that only happens every 35,000 years?

No, a cosmic non-event. Mars has never - and will never - appear as big as a full Moon.

The Earth, Mars, and the Moon. Yes, Mars is bigger than the Moon, but it's also 54.6 million miles away from us, even at its closest. The Moon is 238,900 miles away.

A stunning photo taken in Rio in July 2018, showing the eclipsed full Moon and Mars at opposition. The two celestial objects are a long way from looking the same size!

If the interstellar object called 'Oumuamua were an alien light sail - which I very much doubt - what would that be? We have light sails, usually called solar sails since the source of the light is the Sun, though nothing so marvellous that it could be wandering through the galaxy. Fraser Cain explains how a solar sail works.

Here is a diagram of a cross section of the Van Allen radiation belts that surround the Earth. They're made up of charged particles from the Sun trapped in Earth's magnetic field. This is good for us on Earth because they're rather dangerous, and if they're trapped there, they don't zap living things on Earth.

But not so good if you want to get astronauts into deep space. Yet it can be done. In fact, astronauts made it through the radiation belts on 18 occasions - that's nine round trips to the Moon.

Curious Droid explains how NASA did it.

Many Moon hoaxers demand to know "Why," if we were able to go to the Moon in 1969, "has there been no serious attempt to return to the Moon?"

Well, first of all, Apollo 11 was already the third mission to go to the Moon, Apollo 8 and Apollo 10 having preceded it. But it was the first to land humans on the Moon. As for returning, a further six missions followed Apollo 11 to the Moon, five of which landed there.

However it's true that Apollo missions 18-20 were cancelled, and that's been the end of it. Curious Droid explains why humans haven't walked on the Moon since the 1970s. But if you're in a hurry, the short answer is: going to the Moon was incredibly expensive, and once the US had shown up the Russians, Congress didn't think it was worth the money, just for more science.