Once in a Blue Moon
Last week was full of interesting Moon news. “Moon Express” has become the first commercial company approved to try to land on the Moon, on the same day that the Chinese Moon Rover, “Jade Rabbit”, said goodbye (tweeting “This time it really is goodnight/ There are still many questions I would like answers to, but I'm the rabbit that has seen the most stars." on Weibo, the Chinese version of Twitter), after surviving for more than 18 months longer than its planned 3 month mission. Blue Moon of December 2009. Credit: Codybird, Wikimedia To date, just three nations have landed on the Moon. The Jade Rabbit rover, named after the pet rabbit (YuTu) of the Chinese Moon goddess, Change’e, joined over 80 different US and Russian probes on the surface, as well as the remnants of the Apollo missions which saw 10 American men walk on the Moon’s surface in the 1960s and 1970s. The success of the Chinese rover is exciting enough, but the news from Moon Express could be a signal of the s...