One small step with a long life
QUESTION Are the original buggy tracks from the Moon landings still visible?
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) is a Nasa satellite that has been mapping the Moon since 2009. It is drawing a precise 3D map to help plan future robotic and manned missions.
It has successfully mapped 98 per cent of the lunar surface and has provided clear photographs of the six landing sites with footprints, buggy tracks and discarded hardware clearly visible. These can’t be seen by telescopes from earth.
Apollo 11, the first manned mission to the Moon, touched down on July 20, 1969, in the south of the Sea of Tranquility. It didn’t have a lunar rover so there are no buggy tracks.
In the LRO pictures, you can spot Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin’s first steps around the lunar module and tracks that lead to the experiment stations.
You can clearly see the passive seismic experiment package and Lunar Laser Ranging RetroReflector.
Armstrong took an unscheduled moonwalk to peer into Little West crater, 160 ft to the east of the lunar module and his tracks are still visible.
There are far more extensive tracks recorded from later missions. Apollo 12 and 14 allowed for more time on the surface, while Apollo 15, 16, and 17 had the benefit of a lunar roving vehicle, so buggy tracks are apparent.
These tracks will be there for a long time to come, but not for ever. The Moon’s surface is eroded by micro-meteorites — tiny particles that impact at high velocities. Lunar researchers calculate this erodes surface rocks at a rate of 0.04 in every million years. The footprints and buggy tracks will disappear in 10 to 20 million years, unless they are wiped out by a meteorite strike before then. Peter Crawley, Maidenhead, Berks.
QUESTION Travelling by car is driving, by bike is cycling and by plane is flying. Is there a verb relating to travelling by train?
UNLIke driving and riding a bike, which are active pursuits, travelling by train is passive. Thus, we simply go by or take the train.
In the U.S. they have a more active term: to ride the train. This comes from the early days of rail when hobos would leap aboard empty freight wagons. It was analogous to riding a horse.
The anomaly is flying: despite not piloting the plane, you are airborne. This can cause confusion in translation.
The German word fahren means to drive, to travel or to go. I’ve seen fuhr ich mit dem Zug incorrectly translated as ‘I drove the train’ rather than ‘I travelled by train’.
Ian Miller, Canterbury, Kent.
QUESTION What’s the strangest New Year’s resolution made and kept?
FURTheR to the New Year Resolution to make the bed first thing, that may appear neat and tidy, but gives little time for airing. My resolution is to ignore bedmaking until much later in the day. Ken Wood, Newport, Gwent.