consider the following statements about the Moon ........

Current General Knowledge (CLAT) Others

--1--, a prototype of the futuristic Starship rocket developed by Elon Musk’s SpaceX company, was able to launch and successfully land on Wednesday, heralding a new era in space exploration for NASA.

The spacecraft has been described as a game-changer for space travel, being a fully reusable transportation system for crew and cargo to the Earth’s orbit, Moon and Mars.

The successful landing on Wednesday is a relief for NASA and SpaceX, as four previous prototypes of Starship had failed to do so, getting destroyed during or soon after touchdown at the south eastern tip of Texas, near Brownsville.

This latest upgraded version of Space X’s full-scale, stainless steel, bullet-shaped rocket ship soared more than six miles (10 kilometres) over the Gulf of Mexico before flipping and descending horizontally, and then going vertical again just in time for touchdown.

A fire at the base of the 160-foot (50-metre) rocket was quickly extinguished, and the rocket remained standing after the six-minute flight.

Designed by SpaceX, Starship is a spacecraft and super-heavy booster rocket meant to act as a reusable transportation system for crew and cargo to the Earth’s orbit, Moon and Mars. SpaceX has described Starship as “the world’s most powerful launch vehicle” with an ability to carry over 100 metric tonnes to the Earth’s orbit.

Starship has been under development since 2012 and is a part of Space X’s central mission to make interplanetary travel accessible and affordable and to become the first private company to do so. Therefore, the company is working on building a fleet of reusable launch vehicles, capable of carrying humans to Mars and other destinations in the solar system.

Reusability is at the heart of making interplanetary travel accessible, SpaceX believes, since a majority of the launch cost is attributed to the expense of building a rocket that is ultimately designed to burn up during re-entry. “Following the commercial model, a rapidly reusable space launch vehicle could reduce the cost of travelling to space by a hundredfold,” SpaceX mentions on its website.

consider the following statements about the Moon?

The Moon takes almost 27 days to revolve around the earth. But between two full moons, there are 29.5 days.

The celestial body only shows us only one side of itself. One side of it called the dark side or the far side never faces the earth.

The gravitational attraction between the earth and the natural satellite holds it in its orbit even as the moon revolves around the earth.

All of these

Explanation:

This Planetoid takes almost 27 days to revolve around the earth. But between two full moons, there are 29.5 days. This is because the earth also travels a distance through space during that time around the sun. It has to cover an extra distance (which takes 2 more days) if it has to be exactly behind the earth and sun again. The celestial body only shows us only one side of itself. One side of it called the dark side or the far side never faces the earth. This is because the moon takes the same amount of time to rotate about its axis as it does to revolve around the earth. This is not a coincidence and occurs due to a phenomenon known as Tidal Locking. In fact, nobody had seen what the dark side looked like until 1959 when the Soviet space probe Luna 3 took a picture of it.