Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

This is Ephemeris for Thursday, May 28th. Today the Sun will be up for 15 hours and 15 minutes, setting at 9:17, and it will rise tomorrow at 6:02. The Moon, 3 days before full, will set at 4:32 tomorrow morning.

The United States first lunar mission to the moon was the Ranger Program of moon impactors, to televise pictures all the way to impact to see what the moon looked like up close and personal, so to speak. The program actually started before President Kennedy announced plans to send humans to the moon, although the first launch was made several months after that announcement. The program consisted of nine launches of three different variations of the spacecraft. The first two launches failed Then in the next four launches, the spacecraft either missed the moon or were dead on arrival. However, the last three were successful, showing that the moon was indeed mostly smooth enough to land a spacecraft.

The astronomical event times given in this blog are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (Lat 44.7° N, Long 85.7° W; EDT, UT – 4 hours) unless stated otherwise. Times will be different for other locations.

Addendum