View of partial (Annular) solar eclipse on 26th December in Ranchi city.

Though it was cloudy but I tried my best to take few photographs of solar eclipse. 
An annular solar eclipse  occurred on December 26, 2019. A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun , thereby totally or partly obscuring the Sun for a viewer on Earth. An annular solar eclipse occurs when the Moon's apparent diameter is smaller than the Sun's, blocking most of the Sun's light and causing the Sun to look like an annulus (ring). An annular eclipse appears as a partial eclipse over a region of the Earth thousands of kilometres wide. 

NASA Spacecraft Impacts Lunar Crater in Search for Water Ice.

MOFFETT FIELD, Calif. -- NASA's Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS, created twin impacts on the moon's surface early Friday in a search for water ice. Scientists will analyze data from the spacecraft's instruments to assess whether water ice is present. The satellite traveled 5.6 million miles during an historic 113-day mission that ended in the Cabeus crater, a permanently shadowed region near the moon's south pole. The spacecraft was launched June 18 as a companion mission to the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. "The LCROSS science instruments worked exceedingly well and returned a wealth of data that will greatly improve our understanding of our closest celestial neighbor," said Anthony Colaprete, LCROSS principal investigator and project scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. "The team is excited to dive into data." In preparation for impact, LCROSS and its spent Centaur upper stage rocket separated about 54,000 miles above the surface of the moon on Thursday at approximately 6:50 p.m. PDT. Moving at a speed of more than 1.5 miles per second, the Centaur hit the lunar surface shortly after 4:31 a.m. Oct. 9, creating an impact that instruments aboard LCROSS observed for approximately four minutes. LCROSS then impacted the surface at approximately 4:36 a.m. "This is a great day for science and exploration," said Doug Cooke, associate administrator for the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "The LCROSS data should prove to be an impressive addition to the tremendous leaps in knowledge about the moon that have been achieved in recent weeks. I want to congratulate the LCROSS team for their tremendous achievement in development of this low cost spacecraft and for their perseverance through a number of difficult technical and operational challenges."‪ Other observatories reported capturing both impacts. The data will be shared with the LCROSS science team for analysis. The LCROSS team expects it to take several weeks of analysis before it can make a definitive assessment of the presence or absence of water ice. "I am very proud of the success of this LCROSS mission team," said Daniel Andrews, LCROSS project manager at Ames. "Whenever this team would hit a roadblock, it conceived a clever work-around allowing us to push forward with a successful mission." The images and video collected by the amateur astronomer community and the public also will be used to enhance our knowledge about the moon. "One of the early goals of the mission was to get as many people to look at the LCROSS impacts in as many ways possible, and we succeeded," said Jennifer Heldmann, Ames' coordinator of the LCROSS observation campaign. "The amount of corroborated information that can be pulled out of this one event is fascinating." "It has been an incredible journey since LCROSS was selected in April 2006," said Andrews. "The LCROSS Project faced a very ambitious schedule and an uncommonly small budget for a mission of this size. LCROSS could be a model for how small robotic missions are executed. This is truly big science on a small budget."

Does water really exists on the Moon surface?

It is very early to predict about water on the moon.
by

Dr. Nitish Priyadarshi

Fig.1. Image Credit: ISRO/NASA/JPL-Caltech/Brown Univ./USGS

Answer may be No! The tests on moon rock that has reached earth, either from meteorites or from rock brought back by astronauts, have brought a new meaning to the word dry!

NASA's Moon Mineralogy Mapper, an instrument on the Indian Space Research Organization's Chandrayaan-1 mission, took this image of Earth's moon. It is a three-color composite of reflected near-infrared radiation from the sun, and illustrates the extent to which different materials are mapped across the side of the moon that faces Earth.Small amounts of water were detected on the surface of the moon at various locations. This image illustrates their distribution at high latitudes toward the poles.Blue shows the signature of water, green shows the brightness of the surface as measured by reflected infrared radiation from the sun and red shows an iron-bearing mineral called pyroxene.
It is giant leap for India’s space programme and the biggest scientific discovery of the 21st century. India’s maiden moon mission, Chandryaan-1 has found water, a discovery that scientists say will up-end thinking about space and boost research.
The first object in the night sky most of us ever saw, the Moon remains a mystery. Haunted by poets, looked upon by youngsters in love, studied intensely by astronomers for four centuries, examined by geologists for the last 50 years, walked upon by twelve humans, this is Earth's satellite.
And as we look towards the Moon with thoughts of setting up a permanent home there, one new question is paramount: does the Moon have water? Although none has been definitely detected, recent evidence suggests that it's there.
Is it true? Seeing the early analytical report of the moon rock samples, it is very early to predict about water on the moon.
The Apollo missions (1969-1972) place a number of instruments on the Moon and brought back 382 kg of lunar rocks. The Russian Luna programme also returned samples.
According to the analysis reports on the samples, moon bear many similarities to rocks on earth, they differ on one basic point –they contain no water, no hydrated minerals, and no minerals with OH groups in their crystal structures. In contrast, minerals that are hydrated or contain the OH group are plentiful on earth.

Fig.2 A close-up view of Apollo 15 lunar sample no. 15415 in the Lunar Receiving Laboratory (LRL).

Fig.3. Apollo 16 astronaut Charles Duke collects rock samples near Plumb crater on the Moon.

"Compared with terrestrial samples, all lunar rocks are oddballs because they are so dry," said Ryder a researcher. "They contain no molecules of water, they're not oxidized and they contain no ferric iron. They're easy to distinguish from rocks on Earth."
All rocks collected are igneous - formed by cooling lava. The mission failed to find any sedimentary rocks - those deposited by water - on the moon. The moon rocks were found to contain no water and were formed in an environment lacking free oxygen. Iron then occurs as crystals of metallic iron. Exposure to Earth's atmosphere would result in the rocks rusting. A new mineral, Armalcolite, was found by the Apollo 11 astronauts. It was later discovered on Earth.
The other report also supports saying that the lunar surface being free of water (as liquid) there are no water transported sediments on it.
The moon is a small planet that cooled quickly and has been geologically quiet for billions of years. There are no volcanoes and no earthquakes; there is also no atmosphere to cause weathering and erosion. The Moon is at the same mean distance from the Sun as Earth. But because it does not have the thermal protection of an atmosphere its surface temperature ranges from a searing 125 degree C at the lunar noon to a chilling -160 degree C during the lunar night. Having such a variation in temperatures it is very hard to believe the presence of water in any form on the surface of the Moon. On the earth ponds and lakes generally gets dry when temperature rises up to 40 degree C and remains for few days. How can we imagine that in such a high temperature water molecules can be found even in form of soil moisture on the surface of the Moon. Lacking an atmosphere, the Moon lost almost all of this water when the molten rock spewed onto the surface and cooled.
Other theory says that since it has only a tiny fraction of Earth's gravity, most of the Moon's water supply should have evaporated and drifted off into space long ago.

If the water is really present on the moon surface the process by which the water exists means that it likely also exists on other similarly dry bodies like Mercury and the countless asteroids in the Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter and also it could only be found deep inside the moon.

According to a news published by Press Trust of India (PTI), dated Jun 15, 2009, ISRO Chairman G. Madhavan Nair said that no trace of water was found on the Moon's surface. "But, we have found traces of magnesium and calcium." How the statement has now changed?

Reference:
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/14apr_Moonwater.htm
http://www.impactlab.com/2008/07/11/is-there-water-on-the-moon/
http://www.space-travel.com/reports/Next_ISRO_Launch_In_July_August_999.html
https://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solarsystem/moon_rock_analysis_000522_MB_.html http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/science_surfing/116801

NASA Radar provides first look inside Moon's shadowed craters.

Moon's shadowed Crater

Using a NASA radar flying aboard India's Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, scientists are getting their first look inside the moon's coldest, darkest craters.
The images show the floors permanently-shadowed polar craters on the moon that aren’t visible from Earth. Scientists are using the instruments to map and search the insides of the craters for water ice. The image was taken on November 17, 2008.

Spectacular Moon-Venus conjunction on Wednesday.

Spectacular Moon-Venus conjunction on Wednesday

by

Dr. Nitish Priyadarshi

The two brightest objects in the night sky, Venus and Moon, is seen today (31/12/2008)above the Ranchi city of Jharkhand State. Conjunction is a term used in astronomy for the relative positions of celestial bodies.