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I thought that this would be a good area to place interesting articles related to the solar system... To start this thread, I found a good editorial which encompasses the future plans for a lunar colony and entities with an interest...and a plan. Op-ed | Getting Serious About the Moon Village “A Moon Village,” said ESA director-general Johann-Dietrich Woerner, “shouldn’t just mean some houses, a church and a town hall.” It could be beacon of international and even commercial cooperation. Credit: ESA artist's concept of a lunar outpost http://spacenews.com/op-ed-getting-serious-about-the-moon-village/ This summary pretty much shows the intent for a lunar village is real, is being planned and will begin in the very near future. ----------------------------------------------------- Russia touts plan to land a man on the Moon by 2029 File image. http://www.space-travel.com/reports/Russia_touts_plan_to_land_a_man_on_the_Moon_by_2029_999.html ---------------------------------------------- Japan Plans Unmanned Moon Landing A partial lunar eclipse is seen behind cherry blossoms in Tochigi prefecture, eastern Japan, in April. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images http://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2015/11/12/japan-plans-unmanned-moon-landing-in-2019/ as well as this article... http://phys.org/news/2015-04-japan-moon-mission-space-agency.html ------------------------------------- China Wants To Build A Lunar Base On The Far Side Of The Moon photo credit: An illustration of the far side of the moon and Earth in the distance. NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio. China's Yutu rover, pictured, landed on the Moon on 14 December 2013. CNSA/CCTV. http://www.iflscience.com/china-wants-land-moons-far-side-first-time-and-build-lunar-base India has expressed an interest in landing a probe as well.........

The moon generated a surprisingly intense magnetic field until at least 3.56 billion years ago, 160 million years longer than previously thought, a new study reports. These findings could shed light not just on the magnetic field of the moon, which is now extremely weak, but on that of asteroids and other distant worlds, investigators added. Earth's magnetic field is created by its internal dynamo, which itself is generated by the planet's churning molten metal core. Research increasingly suggests that the moon once had a dynamo as well, with evidence of magnetism found in lunar rocks returned by Apollo astronauts. Models of the moon's core suggest its dynamo should have lasted only until about 4.1 billion years ago. However, last year, scientists revealed that the moon possessed a magnetic field for much longer than previously thought, with a powerful dynamo in its core from 4.2 billion years ago to at least 3.72 billion years ago. Researchers have proposed two possibilities to explain why the moon's dynamo lasted so long. One possible explanation is that giant cosmic impacts set the moon lurching enough to drive its dynamo. Another explanation has to do with how the moon's core spins around a slightly different axis than its surrounding mantle layer, generating wobbles ? known as precession ? that could dramatically stir its core. The cosmic-impact idea is supported by the fact that the moon experienced massive collisions until around 3.7 billion years ago, such as the one that created the 715-mile-wide (1,150 kilometers) Mare Imbrium, among other craters. However, the dynamo generated by each impact would have lasted for a mere 10,000 years or so, scientists say. In contrast, if precession drove a lunar dynamo, the moon could have continuously possessed a magnetic field until as late as 1.8 billion years ago. more

If a group of scientists are correct, tiny fossils uncovered inside a meteorite found in Sri Lanka in December are proof of extraterrestrial life. In a detailed paper called "Fossil Diatoms In A New Carbonaceous Meteorite" that is appearing in the Journal of Cosmology, Chandra Wickramasinghe claims to have found strong evidence that life exists throughout the universe. An electron microscope was used to study the reported remains of a large meteorite (see image below) that fell near the Sri Lanka village of Polonnaruwa on Dec. 29. Wickramasinghe is the director of the Buckingham Centre for Astrobiology at the University of Buckingham in the U.K. In December, he and his colleagues found "a microstructure and morphology characteristic of a wide class of terrestrial diatoms." The group concluded that "the presence of structures of this kind in any extraterrestrial setting could be construed as unequivocal proof of biology" -- in other words, proof of life outside of planet Earth. Wickramasinghe and English astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle have co-developed a theory known as "panspermia," which suggests that life exists throughout the universe and is distributed by meteoroids and asteroids. "We conclude ... that the identification of fossilised diatoms [as shown in the image below] in the Polonnaruwa meteorite is firmly established and unimpeachable. Since this meteorite is considered to be an extinct cometary fragment, the idea of microbial life carried within comets and the theory of cometary panspermia is thus vindicated," Wickramasinghe wrote in the research paper. more

A newly announced private space telescope mission aims to reduce Earth's vulnerability to catastrophic asteroid strikes, which the instrument's builders regard as unacceptably high. The Sentinel space telescope, which the nonprofit B612 Foundation hopes to launch in 2017 or 2018, may identify 500,000 near-Earth asteroids in less than six years of operation ? quite a feat, considering that just 10,000 such space rocks have been catalogued to date. This asteroid-mapping work is vitally important, B612 officials say, because some big and dangerous space rocks undoubtedly have Earth's name on them. "They have hit the Earth in the past and will do so in the future, unless we do something about it," former astronaut Ed Lu, B612's chairman and CEO, told reporters Thursday (June 28). more & video