Home | NASA Lunar Science Institute

NEOShield: Protecting Earth from impact threats

A new international consortium includes Germany, France, UK, Spain, US and Russia

Vesta Likely Cold and Dark Enough for Ice

First published models suggest conditions on Vesta favorable for water ice

Science on Saturday Lecture: Lunar Learning

Join us at the NASA Ames Exploration Center on January 28th at 2:00pm

NLSI Science Teams

Partners & Programs

International Observe the Moon Night is an annual event to celebrate our nearest celestial neighbor, and give the interested public a chance to observe the moon at parties held worldwide.

The Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project (LOIRP) is a project to digitize data tapes from the five 1966 and 1967 Lunar Orbiter spacecraft that were sent to the Moon.

The aim of Moon Zoo is to provide detailed crater counts for as much of the Moon's surface as possible, with your help.

The International Lunar Network is a partnership to establish a set of robotic geophysical monitoring stations on the surface of the Moon to provide significant scientific value to the exploration of the Moon for all involved partners.

The Lunar Library contains publications, whitepapers, and reports generated by NLSI teams or the broader lunar science community.

NASA is celebrating the Year of the Solar System! Spanning a Martian year (23 months), numerous missions will encounter their targets—the Moon and Mars, Mercury and Jupiter, and even comets and asteroids! Click here to learn more!

The Astromaterials Curation and Acquisition Office preserves extraterrestrial samples of the Moon returned by the Apollo missions.

The Exploration Systems Mission Directorate is building the capabilities to send humans deeper into space than ever before.

Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite discovered the presence of water ice in a permanently shadowed crater at the Moon's South Pole.

The Lunar and Planetary Institute serves as a repository for information gathered during the early years of the space program.

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter conducts investigations that prepare and support future human exploration to the Moon.

The Scientific Context for Exploration of the Moon report provides guidance on scientific challenges and opportunities enabled by sustained robotic and human exploration of the Moon.

An NSSDC archive of data returned by past Lunar missions, including Ranger, Surveyor, Lunar Orbiter, Apollo, Clementine, many Soviet missions, and others.

The Science Mission Directorate engages the nation's science community to answer fundamental questions requiring the view from and into space.

The NLSI hosted the 4th annual Lunar Science Forum on July 19-21, 2011. It featured sessions on the latest scientific results from missions, and a side conference for graduate students and young professionals. Video recordings are available here!

Did you know?

CURRENT MOON

lunar phase

There is no audible sound on the Moon because its atmosphere is mostly a vacuum.