Sleeping probe and Earthquake

I checked the Chandrayaan blog today, "Charn Dra Yarn". The probes have gone into sleep mode until the 22nd. I think this is because night time on the moon lasts for about 2 weeks. The moon's equivalent to 24 hours is 28 days, that's two weeks of Day and two weeks of night. It is very slow. The probes are solar powered so they need sunlight to run. Fortunately the James Webb space telescope doesn't sleep for 2 weeks. The James Webb blog is https://blogs.nasa.gov/webb/, they were looking at a dying star recently, the star was a yellow dwarf star very much like the sun but at the end of its life.  

A few days ago I learned that Morocco had a strong 6.8 Richter earthquake. It is a very big disaster and I learned that many buildings were toppled. Life can be lost at any moment in time. I think to myself I will live to see my 80s but I could have a stroke or something like that tomorrow. I think about death every day for a short time but when I learn about a disaster on the news, I think about it abit more than normal. 

What August 2023 Means To Me

The whole month of August is School holiday period for Britain. I learned not long ago that is has to do with the harvest season, most produce in the UK is harvested in August so kids would be sent home help their parents harvest crops. My family went on a short break during August by the coast, the weather was very pleasant. 

During this month, wild fires were breaking out in the wilderness throughout the world. There was a dry spell everywhere, a small ignition was enough to cause an entire forest to burn up; I thought to myself that some of the fires were caused by human activity like arsonists and irresponsible campers. Perhaps a few greedy property developers as well. 

The former President of the United States of America was summoned to court and indicted of various crimes related  to vote tampering and insightment to overturn a democratic result. I wondered if the American high court would have taken Trump to court if he wasn't standing for elections in 2024. I think they're trying to stop him from standing as a candidate. 

During the second half of August, the Indian Space Research Organisation IRSO, send a robotic probe near to the moon's south pole. It was called Chandrayaan 3 ("charn dra Yarn"). India is the first nation to send a probe to moon's south pole. 

They used a rocket that works in a similar way to the space shuttle and Artemis systems. The rocket has two solid booster rockets that detach when they're empty and a lower section that also detaches. The probe itself has a spectrometer camera that looks at light transmitted from plasma and laser to zap rocks so they briefly turn to plasma. The thing can tell what the stuff on the moon's surface is made of. So far they have detected a lot of sulphur and silicone, chemicals that are found in common basalt type rocks. 

I think they're looking for ice and things like that. 

Let's see what they find...