Landings On Moons of Other Solar System Bodies
Progress in space exploration has recently broadened the phrase moon landing to include other moons in the solar system as well. The Huygens probe of the Cassini mission to Saturn performed a successful unmanned moon landing on Titan in 2005. Similarly, the Soviet probe Phobos 2 came within 120 miles (190 km) of performing an unmanned moon landing on Mars' moon Phobos in 1989 before radio contact with that lander was suddenly lost. A similar Russian sample return mission called Fobos-Grunt ("grunt" means "soil" in Russian) launched in November 2011, but stalled in low-earth orbit. There is widespread interest in performing a future moon landing on Jupiter's moon Europa to drill down and explore the possible liquid water ocean beneath its icy surface.
Read more about this topic: Moonlanding
Famous quotes containing the words moons, solar, system and/or bodies:
“Since moons decay and suns decline,
How else should end this life of mine?”
—John Masefield (1878–1967)
“Lincoln becomes the American solar myth, the chief butt of American credulity and sentimentality.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)
“I candidly confess that I have ever looked on Cuba as the most interesting addition which could ever be made to our system of States. The control which, with Florida, this island would give us over the Gulf of Mexico, and the countries and isthmus bordering on it, as well as all those whose waters flow into it, would fill up the measure of our political well-being.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“Hear me, auld Hangie, for a wee,
An’ let poor, damned bodies bee;
I’m sure sma’ pleasure it can gie,
Ev’n to a deil,
To skelp an’ scaud poor dogs like me,
An’ hear us squeel!”
—Robert Burns (1759–1796)