There were two science articles this week that are interesting follow ups to the blog I wrote about a fifth grade teacher showing YouTube videos of the lunar landing “hoax”.

Seth Borenstein  (an AP Science writer) wrote the article entitled, “Long-lost lunar photos get another day in the sun.” According to Borenstein, Nancy Evans kept the pre-Apollo lunar probe photo machine (1,000 pounds) in her garage for two decades! Way to go Nancy! Beyond preserving these important images for science students and researchers, maybe my wife will let me keep my canoe in the garage for a second decade.

A group of talented and enthusiastic folks repaired the photo machine and is now processing (at an abandoned McDonald’s restaurant) and releasing the photos at www.moonviews.com. This is a great deed they are doing – let’s hope all the old ketchup and grease in their humble workspace is gone. These photos were originally used to help decide where to land on the moon. The image to the right is a newly released image of “the Earthrise.” I love the retro feel of the images. When we get new images of the Moon by upcoming probes, it will be great to compare old and new to see what changes have occurred in the lunar landscape after 40+ years.

The other article is by another AP writer Gavin Rabinowitz: “India celebrates planting its flag on moon.” India is getting ambitious in space exploration as natural extensions of its scientific, technical, and economic progress. From the article’s headline, and from The Hindustan Times headline, “The Tricolor has Landed” and the Hindu’s  “India leaves its footprints on the moon, you might imagine a probe sending the green, white, and saffron flag to the moon, and in true Wallace and Gromit fashion, a robot would come out to unfurl and plant the Indian Flag. But no! Rather, the space agency painted the probe the colors of the Indian flag and the probe crashed into the moon at a speed of 5,000 kilometers per hour. This would be more than 14 times the speed of sound in air! The probe’s name was Chandrayaan-1, where Chandrayaan is an ancient Sanskrit word that I suspect means tiny flakes of green, white, and saffron mixed with gray dust.

This may go down as the cheesiest flag planting in history; nevertheless, it is still a remarkable technological achievement. India joins with the US, European Space Agency, Russia, China, and Japan as the only countries to send a spacecraft to the Moon. India plans to send a rover to the Moon by 2011 and perhaps if General Motors goes out of business, in 2012 we can buy a version of the rover for traversing the large craters of unrepaired roads in Flint, Detroit, and Ann Arbor, Michigan.  

Grammar: Capital Offences

I am not one to play the “holier than thou” card, and when it comes to grammar I am far from being an expert.  But when it comes to capitalization of certain familiar celestial objects, many writers follow illogical conventions, including Borenstein and Rabinowitz. Not that I am blaming them, they are following a convention, although in my mind, it is a convention that should be thrown out. Since we capitalize Venus, Mars, and Jupiter, isn’t Earth just as good as other planets? (“If a meteor hits me, don’t I crater? If my plates move, don’t I crack?) Shouldn’t we capitalize Earth whenever we refer to it as a planet? I say, “Yes, this is logical!” Of course if you are talking about the soil and call it earth that is an entirely different matter. To whit, “The aliens from Mars came to Earth and scooped up some earth and then went to Venus.”

And if you are talking about our Moon, it should be also capitalized, just as you do for Phobos, and Europa. In fact, the term moon refers to large natural objects that orbit planets. So if you are talking about the Earth’s moon, called the Moon, you should capitalize it like you do the names of other moons. And this way it is clear you are talking about a specific celestial object. For instance, “Our astronomy class focused on moons. During the night we observed the following moons: Moon, Io, and Ganymede.

And we capitalize the common names of stars such as Proxima Centaur, Sirius, and Rigil Kentaurus so we should capitalize the Sun, when we refer to it as a celestial object.

It seems the only logic for not capitalizing Sun, Earth, and Moon is that we use these terms a lot. But that logic is weak. Familiarity shouldn’t change capitalization rules. Even if I say, “Arizona” a lot, it should still be capitalized. And, “President Bush” should keep his capitals even after he leaves the capital.

Resources

Adaptive Curriculum’s Flash-based Activity Object Entitled, “Star Types” Students send probes to find a planet suitable for human life.

Dinkin, Sam (January 31, 2005) “Capitalize the Moon.” The Space Review

Closest Stars 

Table of Moons in our Solar System

For the Record

Chandrayaan is indeed an ancient Sanskrit word but it means, “moon craft.”

1,000 pounds is approximately 454 kilograms.

I have a racing canoe so it doesn’t come anywhere near weighing 1,000 pounds. But it takes up more room than the old photo processor.

5,000 kilometers is approximately 3,107 miles.

Although Ann Arbor doesn’t directly make cars or trucks, the collapse of the auto industry would have sweeping consequences for many other industries, universities, towns, and states. The inclusion of “Ann Arbor” is to make this point and it does not constitute an insult to the university in that town, nor is it meant to draw attention to its 2008 football season.