Word: lunik
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Crater. The Russians themselves do not claim to know precisely where the Lunik landed. Astronomers from the Ukraine's Kharkov Observatory, who watched and photographed the moon at the moment of impact from a high-flying airplane, think they saw 'a light effect" at the right instant. U.S. astronomers doubt it. Moon Expert Gerard Kuiper of the University of Chicago thinks that no flash of impact would have been visible against the moon's sunlit surface. He questions a Hungarian report of seeing a long-lasting dust cloud on the moon. Since the moon has virtually...
First news of the hit came to the free world from the radio telescope at Britain's Jodrell Bank. As the moon rose, the great 250-ft. dish swung toward it. The sharp beep-beep of Lunik II throbbed in the control room. The signals were coming from the exact point in the starry sky that the Russians had predicted by telegram to Jodrell Bank...
...preposition k (pronounced "kuh"), which means both to and toward. Thus they might have been shooting either at or toward the moon. The final payload, they said, was a sphere weighing 859.8 lbs. and carefully sterilized to avoid contaminating the moon. It was slightly heavier than the payload of Lunik I that missed the moon on Jan. 3, 1959 and soared on into a solar orbit...
...Moscow time, the Lunik emitted a cloud of sodium vapor. It was too low in the east for good observation in Western Europe, but several Soviet observatories reported seeing it. The cloud gave an accurate check of the course, and presently the Russians announced that Lunik II would actually hit the moon at 12:05 a.m. on Monday Moscow time (5:05 p.m. E.D.T. Sunday...
Target: Tranquillity. The Russians gave precise information about Lunik's radios, which were transmitting on seven different frequencies. Signals were received briefly in San Francisco and in Japan, then faded out as moon and Lunik disappeared behind the earth. By this time the Russians had time to line up their figures. They announced officially that Lunik II would reach the moon four minutes ahead of schedule: at 5:01 E.D.T. They also predicted boldly that it would hit in the region between the Sea of Tranquillity, the Sea of Serenity and the Sea of Vapors. The way to tell...