Moon Microbe Mystery Solved

[Jimbeaux]

Interesting read here:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20110506/sc_space/mo...

[Eric Mc]

a) it was always assumed that the microbes were earth mictrobes that had survived their 2 year stay on the moon. This article isn't exactly news.

b) why does the article show a picture from Apollo 14 whern a picture from Apollo 12 would have been more appropriate?

[Jimbeaux]

Eric Mc said:

a) it was always assumed that the microbes were earth mictrobes that had survived their 2 year stay on the moon. This article isn't exactly news.

b) why does the article show a picture from Apollo 14 whern a picture from Apollo 12 would have been more appropriate?

It is a new article, I suppose it is finally official. One of the reasons I posted this is that I knew you would find their faults. I was counting on it!

[Eric Mc]

Jimbeaux said:

Eric Mc said:

a) it was always assumed that the microbes were earth mictrobes that had survived their 2 year stay on the moon. This article isn't exactly news.

b) why does the article show a picture from Apollo 14 whern a picture from Apollo 12 would have been more appropriate?

It is a new article, I suppose it is finally official. One of the reasons I posted this is that I knew you would find their faults. I was counting on it!

I hate sloppy journalism.

Here's a much more appropriate picture they could have used -



It took me about two minutes to find that using Google.

[bigandclever]

Eric Mc said:

I hate sloppy journalism.

Where do they get "the lunar deep-freeze at an average temperature of minus 253 degrees Celsius" from as well? It's nowhere near as low as that - I'm pretty sure the minimum doesn't even get as low as the 'average' the article says.

[Jimbeaux]

Eric Mc said:

Jimbeaux said:

Eric Mc said:

a) it was always assumed that the microbes were earth mictrobes that had survived their 2 year stay on the moon. This article isn't exactly news.

b) why does the article show a picture from Apollo 14 whern a picture from Apollo 12 would have been more appropriate?

It is a new article, I suppose it is finally official. One of the reasons I posted this is that I knew you would find their faults. I was counting on it!

I hate sloppy journalism.

Here's a much more appropriate picture they could have used -



It took me about two minutes to find that using Google.

Excellent as always!

[Eric Mc]

I bet they didn't use that shot because it was in black and white. Looking at the complete Apollo 12 lunar surface archive (whih is available on the web), you can see that by the time they had moseyed over to the Surveyor, they had loaded up the Hasselblad with a roll of black and white film.

Unfortunately, on Apollo 12, they had a colour TV camera which they managed to wreck shortly after seting it up by inadvertantly pointing it directly at the sun. We had to wait for Apollo 14 before we saw good colour TV from the moon.

The TV images of the Surveyor would have been really interesting.