Q: Thou are notified that thy kind hath infiltrated the galaxy too far already. Thou art directed to return to thine own solar system immediately.

Picard: That's quite a directive. Would you mind identifying who you are?

Q: We call ourselves the Q.

*entire bridge crew cringes*

Good morning America! You all seem thrilled about Biden’s moon rock. Its symbolism, of the scientific and exploratory achievements that have been made – and will ideally soon be surpassed – certainly hits home.

What you might not know is that rock has an *epic* backstory. 1/x

This rock is known as Lunar Sample 76015,143 - an unromantic name for one of the geologic treasures brought back from the Moon during the Apollo era. This was scooped up by the Apollo 17 astronauts, including Harrison Schmitt, the only professional geologist sent to the moon. 2/x

But that’s not where our story begins. The rock's sage starts 4.5 billion years earlier.

I don’t know if you know this, but you should: the Moon is a hole-punched volcanic crypt, a place sculpted by huge impacts and strange, epic effusions of lava. 3/x

We don’t know how the Moon formed. But the leading theory, partly because it’s the simplest, is that a Mars-sized protoplanet slammed into a magma ocean-covered baby Earth. The impact debris formed an orbiting disk, and it clumped together. Et voilà. 4/x

A whole bunch of cool stuff happened after that. But our moon rock comes into the picture around 600 million years later, around the time giant space rocks were pelting the Moon, Marco Inaros-style. They left some epic scars, mostly on the nearside for some unknown reason. 5/x

Star of Bethlehem, SKY EVENT, False Skies, Alice & Wonderland, Space, JFK Jr., Blockchain, Quantum, and who knows where else my mind will go.

THREAD

As we bid farewell to 2020, while it has been a difficult year for so many, one positive has been the steps forward we have made in space exploration.

Here is my top ten..

1/ @SpaceX launched astronauts to space for the first time on May 30.

@AstroBehnken and @Astro_Wheels became the first two astronauts to ride aboard Crew Dragon.

It was also the first time that @NASA astronauts had launched from US soil since July 2011.

@AstroBehnken @Astro_Wheels @NASA 2/ NASA’s Perseverance rover was launched to Mars.

Due to land on the Red Planet on Feb 18 2021, the mission – hunting for past signs of life- will last a year and also has the first helicopter to ever be flown on the planet!

@AstroBehnken @Astro_Wheels @NASA 3/ Phosphine gas was claimed to be detected on the planet of Venus.

This could be exciting as it could mean simple life might exist on the planet.

But there is still a lot of debate around this

@AstroBehnken @Astro_Wheels @NASA 4/ Water ice was confirmed on the surface of the Moon.

Studies also showed it is more common than first thought, with water ice identified on the Moons sunlit surface.

Potential here is huge for future Moon explorers.

Neptune

So another thread on..... Mars, this time the early years of the space age

#CountdowntoMars #Mars #Perseverance

1964 was a vintage year. The Beatles, Goldfinger, (consults notes – I was very young at the time), my christening and..... oh yes, JPL sent the first missions to the Red Planet @carolynporco

What people forget is that even then so very little was known about the Red Planet as it was not easy to see with then state-of-the art equipment – in that same year of 1964 the official USAF Cartography Center map of Mars still had canals drawn on it as ridiculous as it seems