So Near And Yet So Far

One selfie from Bereshit before we lost communication. 

This was supposed to be my Reasons 2B Cheerful post for this week. I had it all planned and was rehearsing the words in my head as I settled down to watch live coverage of the Beresheet moon landing.

Today at Ben Gurion Airport, the arrivals boards were announcing MOON at 22.00 (time not finalized).

All over the country there were big screens set up with hundreds of people watching together. President Rivlin had 200 children in the President's residency, face-painting, doing crafts and watching at the same time. The Cinemateque in Jerusalem and the Intercontinental Hotel in Tel Aviv to name two more.

We watched at home. I put it on the big TV for full effect. Opher Doron, one of the engineers at SpaceIL, explained what was going to happen. The spacecraft was approaching the moon. They were controlling the engines to get it into position. DD was in her bedroom.

Me: DD! DD! Come and watch the moon landing.
DD: No! I'm Busy!
Me: Come on! It's historical!
DD comes running down the corridor.
DD: Why is it hysterical?
Me: Historical not hysterical.
DD: Oh, I only came because I thought it was going to be funny.

However, she stayed as we both got drawn into the excitement. They hyped it up. "Israel, the small country with big dreams, is only the fourth country in the world to land on the moon."

"In one minute the spacecraft will decide for itself whether the landing conditions are favourable and then it's on its own. We will have passed the point of no return." They explained that if Beresheet decides to abort the landing it will continue to orbit the moon and we can try again in another four hours.

Suddenly they announced: "we have passed the point of no return, the landing process has started." We all clapped. The scientists, the dignitaries, Bibi and Sara Netanyahu, me and DD.

But then things began to go wrong. "We've lost telemetry." (He pronounced it te-LE-metry. I thought he said that they've lost the lemon tree.) Then they regained telemetry (or the lemon tree) and we were back in business.

"The breaking mechanism is in full process, the spacecraft is doing everything it's supposed to do at this moment."

Pure joy when Beresheet sent a selfie from the backside of the moon. There was the Israeli flag just short of the moon in the background. Am Yisrael Chai (The people of Israel Live - it's a message to Hitler et al.) and Small Country, Big Dreams in English. Lots of frenzied clapping.

The excitement was rising but then, "We seem to have a problem with the main engine."

"The main engine is back on." We all clapped again with relief. "But it's not, no no, it's not....."

And finally. "The main engine is back on but we have lost communication with the spacecraft. We are trying to get it back...... No, we've lost communication."

It was all over. Less than seven minutes to go and only a few kilometres from the moon's surface. The stats said 15 km but Opher said 41 km so I'm not sure exactly. Either way, it's nearer than Tel Aviv from Jerusalem.

They tried to put a positive spin on it. "We are the seventh country to orbit the moon and the fourth country to reach the moon (but not land safely - is what he meant).

As my friend Jonny put it, Israeli drivers eh? Israel is the first country to crash on the moon. And now I'm going to bed, tired and bitterly disappointed.

To The Moon And Back

This morning Israel (and Nasa) launched the first Israeli Moon Lander. This is huge. Only three other countries in the world have ever landed on the moon.

Russia landed the first unmanned rocket on 13th September 1959. America was first to put a man on the moon on 20th July 1969. And China landed an unmanned something in 2013. We are the fourth country in the world to go to the moon!

I'm writing this at 4.10 am. No this is not part of my get up early regime. This was a special early rise to watch the space launch. Although it wasn't actually planned. I mean the space launch was planned obviously, but as we went to bed last night I said to DD, "do we really want to get up at 3.30 to watch the launch?"
"Nah," she replied, "we'll watch it in the morning."

Then I woke up with a headache so seeing as I was awake anyway I woke DD and she came to watch the live streaming with me. We listened to the commentary in English from America. There were flashes and flares, the rocket went up, every so often the people on the ground at Nasa clapped enthusiastically.
DD said, "We don't understand any of this, I'm going back to bed."

Then the first stage rocket was ejected, then it made re-entry into the Earth's orbit, and finally it landed safely. More clapping from Nasa, I joined in. I wan't entirely caught up in the excitement yet but it would have been rude not to clap.

They announced a short break. Oh good, time for coffee. I made coffee and found the live streaming on the big smart tv screen, ready to watch the moon landing, or at least see more of the journey. My channel was still on a break but they showed how you could get an app on your phone to see pictures of the Earth from space. I won't bother - Design Home is taking up far too much phone memory already.

I texted a friend who I knew was also up watching. "What time is the actual moon landing?"
"Some time in April."
"You're kidding. I just made coffee."

So now I'm up and awake. It's going to be a long long day.

New Stars Over Bethlehem?

On Saturday night I was doing the washing up and happened to glance out of the window to see a sliver of new moon like a smile (or a cereal bowl) in the night sky. Aha, Silent Sunday! I thought and rushed to get my camera. However, on posting the picture, there was more to it than I had originally realized.

Here is the photo from the night of 25.2.12, looking west over Jerusalem. Just above the moon to the left is a planet. When I first saw it I purposely tried to incude it in the shot as I thought it was a bright star. But in fact, alerted by the one of the comments under my post, it is a planet.

I did some googling (as one does) and found out that on that night the sun, the moon, Mercury, Jupiter and Venus would all be aligned and visible to the naked eye. Some reports say that Mars was also present earlier in the evening but soon slipped below the horizon. And the show was due to continue on Sunday night 26.2.12.

So last night I took some more photos and I definitely got both Jupiter and Venus (below the moon) in these shots. Also interesting to see (if you can) is that the moon was partially eclipsed on two sides - the top and the right. One of the eclipses was the earth and the other... Mercury maybe? Anyone with a bit of knowledge on this subject is invited to leave a comment to enlighten us. Thank you.

Before I leave you with these pictures I want to mention that (the little town of) Bethlehem is about 10 minutes drive to the south of where I live. Some accounts speculate that what the Magi (the three wise men/Kings) actually saw in the sky may have been Jupiter. They came from the east and so they were looking west. Jupiter to the left of the moon would look like it was pointing south of Jerusalem (earlier in the evening than when I took this photo). Reader, I didn't follow the star.