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8:30 a.m. Audubon Society Field Trip See Event Description

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8:30 a.m. Alzheimer’s Resource Center Volunteer Training See Event Description

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9 a.m. Arcata Farmers' Market Arcata Plaza

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9 a.m. Speakers' Symposium College of the Redwoods

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9 a.m. Humboldt Botanical Gardens Foundation Speakers’ Symposium College of the Redwoods

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9 a.m. Humboldt Botanical Gardens' Speakers' Symposium College of the Redwoods

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9 a.m. Fall Rummage Sale Arcata United Methodist Church

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9:30 a.m. AAUW Meeting See Event Description

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9:30 a.m. Little River State Beach Restoration See Event Description

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9:30 a.m. Sierra Club Headwaters Hike See Event Description

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10 a.m. Lanphere Dunes Guided Walk See Event Description

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10 a.m. 5th Annual Synergy Fair Arcata Community Center

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10 a.m. Go Green and Boost Your Bottom Line Wharfinger Building

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11 a.m. Sustaining Excellence and Enthusiasm in Health, Relationships and Work Carlo Theater (Dell'Arte)

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noon KEET's Kids Club Morris Graves Museum of Art

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1:30 p.m. Humboldt County Historical Society Humboldt County Library

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2 p.m. Arcata Marsh Field Trip Arcata Marsh and Wildlife Sanctuary Interpretive Center

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4 p.m. Woodside Preschool’s 36th Wine and Ale Tasting Gala Adorni Recreation Center

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4:30 p.m. Harvest Dinner and Bazaar Humboldt Grange

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5 p.m. A Toast to Music Christ Episcopal Church

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5:30 p.m. Elvis and the Hound Dogs + Stolen Taxi Trinidad Town Hall

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6 p.m. The Tumbleweeds Chapala Cafe

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6 p.m. Arts Alive! Various Locations

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6 p.m. Day of the Dead Exhibition Ink People Center for the Arts

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6 p.m. Bar None 10th Anniversary Eureka Labor Temple

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6 p.m. Randy Spicer Piante Gallery

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6 p.m. Gallery Open for Arts Alive! Four Paths Gallery and Studio

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6:30 p.m. ShinBone (Blues R&B) Eureka Theater

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7 p.m. Mike Craighead and Sari Baker Old Town Coffee & Chocolates

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7 p.m. Harvest Concert Arcata Presbyterian Church

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7 p.m. 2 Left Feet Dance Project Redwood Raks World Dance Studio

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7:30 p.m. Joe & Me Cafe Mokka

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7:30 p.m. Cyrano de Begerac Eureka High School Auditorium

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7:30 p.m. Torch Song Summit Eureka Women's Club

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7:30 p.m. Jeff DeMark and the LaPatinas Westhaven Center for the Arts

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8 p.m. Stones in His Pockets Arcata Playhouse

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8 p.m. Humboldt Bay Brass Band Fulkerson Recital Hall at HSU

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9 p.m. Synergy Six Rivers Brewery

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9 p.m. Arts Alive! with Akaboom Sound Pearl Lounge

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9 p.m. Tempest WAVE @ blue lake casino

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9 p.m. Back In The Daze Dance Party Central Station Cocktail Lounge

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9 p.m. Swingin' Country Band (country) Bear River Casino

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9 p.m. The Zygoats + Alder Camp (rock) The Lil' Red Lion

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9 p.m. DJ Knutz (funk) Muddy's Hot Cup

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10 p.m. Music by DJ Sidelines

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10 p.m. DJ Icy Hot Aunty Mo's Lounge

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10 p.m. These United States (indie folk) Humboldt Brews

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11 p.m. Hellbound Glory The Alibi Lounge and Restaurant

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previous columns

June 18, 2009

Hundred-Foot Waves

Pilot Rock is the outermost of Trinidad Bay's scattering of ...

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June 11, 2009

Our Amazing Eyes

Human eyesight is a wondrous mechanism. On the one hand, ...

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June 4, 2009

Dry-land Exiles

...we will not really be happy until we can escape ...

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  • Final stage of the Atlas rocket preceding the LCROSS spacecraft to the moon's surface. LCROSS will observe the plume thrown up by the Centaur impact before crashing nearby. (NASA/Northrop Grumman) Final stage of the Atlas rocket preceding the LCROSS spacecraft to the moon's surface. LCROSS will observe the plume thrown up by the Centaur impact before crashing nearby. (NASA/Northrop Grumman)
Water on the Moon?

Water on the Moon?

By Barry Evans

I'm jazzed about NASA's latest venture to the moon, which was launched last Thursday afternoon June 18. The main mission, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), is a robotic spacecraft with the primary objective of surveying lunar resources and identifying possible landing sites for the next, long-overdue human mission, slated for 2020.

LRO is a sophisticated spacecraft destined to fly in a polar lunar orbit as as it maps the entire surface. In addition to super-high resolution photography (it will be able to detect gear left from the Apollo years), LRO will be measuring deep space radiation in the lunar environment, as a prelude to an extended human presence on the surface. However, radiation may not be moon-visitors' biggest problem. While astronauts could cover their living quarters with a few feet of lunar soil to absorb gamma rays, they'd be very limited without ready access to the stuff we Humboldt County dwellers take for granted: water. If there was concrete on the moon, we'd mine it for its water content.

Conventional wisdom says that the lunar surface is drier than the Sahara, since sunlight long ago evaporated any lunar water that might have been brought there in the form of icy comets. But what if CW is wrong? That's what NASA mission planners are hoping for, that sheets or tundras of very cold water ice are lying at the bottoms of deep, dark craters at the moon's poles, where the sun never shines.

Which explains the excitement over LRO's "piggy-back" mission, the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS). Originally, LRO was a stand-alone mission, but the decision -- made just three short years ago (most mission timelines are for five-10 years) -- to switch to a more powerful Atlas V launch vehicle offered scientists the opportunity to look for water in a more hands-on way. On October 8, LCROSS is scheduled to smash into a polar crater, sending up a plume of -- what? Dust? Water vapor? That's the big question.

It gets better. The final stage of the Atlas rocket precedes the LCROSS on its crash course by four minutes, so whatever gets thrown up by that impact will be observed, in very close detail, by instruments on the LCROSS craft. Not to mention observatories worldwide and countless amateurs hoping to glimpse the two impact clouds. Anyone with a 10-inch or larger telescope has a chance of witnessing history in the making.

Water on the moon? It's a long shot, but it could make all the difference between just visiting and colonizing our local companion in space.

Barry Evans (barryevans9@yahoo.com) never thought in 1972 he'd still be waiting 37 years later for people to walk again on the moon. He lives in Old Town Eureka.

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