Word: lunar
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Clinging Dust. In one movie sequence, shot through Intrepid's window as the craft settled toward a landing, dust kicked up by the descent engine begins to obscure the lunar landscape. It finally blots out the landing site completely, vividly demonstrating why Conrad had to make an instrument landing. Another strip, shot on the trip home, shows a dazzling eclipse of the sun caused by the earth itself...
Other trophies of the Apollo 12 mission also preceded the astronauts to Houston. Some 80 Ibs. of lunar rock were delivered by midweek to eager scientists at the Lunar Receiving Laboratory (LRL). Although a thick coat of clinging dust prevented immediate detailed observation, geologists could see that several of the rocks were igneous-formed out of molten material like lava. They were also of a lighter hue than the brownish gray Apollo 11 rocks from the Sea of Tranquility-and much larger. The biggest of these "grapefruits," as Conrad had called them, weighed as much as four pounds and were...
Scientists were just as elated over what the astronauts had left behind. Performing well at the Ocean of Storms base, ALSEP (for Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package) had begun transmitting valuable data even before the astronauts left the moon. For the time being, earth controllers commanded two of the instruments-designed to investigate any traces of lunar atmosphere-to go into a stand-by mode; that would allow earthly gases left within them to bake out during the torrid two-week-long lunar day (maximum temperature: 240° F.). Once freed of these vapors, which interfere with their high-voltage...
...other three instruments were anything but idle. Radioing data constantly, ALSEP's magnetometer indicated that the moon's magnetic field-which could offer important clues to the lunar interior-may be considerably stronger than had been believed. Palmer Dyal, one of the magnetometer experimenters, had an esoteric, but speculative explanation: after a period of vulcanism, the moon cooled more rapidly than scientists had heretofore thought, thus preserving a larger portion of its primordial magnetic field...
Echo Chamber. The solar-wind spectrometer was also working well, even though it had, for the moment, little to detect; the moon was passing through the earth's magnetic tail (April 22, 1966), which shielded the lunar surface from the high-velocity solar particles that normally bombard it. Meanwhile, the seismometer had recorded an unexplained, two-minute tremor. And scientists were still trying to explain the strange vibrations recorded for 55 minutes by the instrument immediately after Intrepid's ascent stage impacted into the Ocean of Storms...