This mosaic of three images, taken by the advanced Moon Imaging Experiment (AMIE)on board ESA's SMART-1 spacecraft, shows Mare Humorum on the Moon. AMIE obtained the top frame on 1 January 2006, from a distance of 1087 kilometres from the surface, with a ground resolution of 98 metres per pixel. The remaining two frames were taken on 13 January 2006, from a distance of about 1069 (centre) and 1050 kilometres (bottom) from the surface, with a ground resolution of 97 and 95 metres per pixel, respectively. The area shown in the top image is centred at a latitude of 40.2º South and longitude 25.9º West; the centre image is centred at a latitude of 40.2º South and longitude 27.3º West; the bottom image is centred at a latitude of 40.2º South and longitude 28.8º West. Mare Humorum, or 'Sea of Moisture', is a small circular mare on the lunar nearside, about 825 kilometres across, filled with a thick layer of mare basalt, (possibly exceeding 3 kilometres in thickness at the centre of the basin). Mare Humorum is a scientifically interesting area because it allows the study of the relationships among lunar mare filling, mare basin tectonics, and global thermal evolution to the major mascon maria – that are regions of the moon's crust which contain a large amount of material denser than average for that area.

AMIE obtained the top frame on 1 January 2006, from a distance of 1087 kilometres from the surface, with a ground resolution of 98 metres per pixel. The remaining two frames were taken on 13 January 2006, from a distance of about 1069 (centre) and 1050 kilometres (bottom) from the surface, with a ground resolution of 97 and 95 metres per pixel, respectively.

The area shown in the top image is centred at a latitude of 40.2º South and longitude 25.9º West; the centre image is centred at a latitude of 40.2º South and longitude 27.3º West; the bottom image is centred at a latitude of 40.2º South and longitude 28.8º West.

Mare Humorum, or 'Sea of Moisture', is a small circular mare on the lunar nearside, about 825 kilometres across. The mountains surrounding it mark the edge of an old impact basin which has been flooded and filled by mare lavas. These lavas also extend past the basin rim in several places. In the upper right are several such flows which extend northwest into southern Oceanus Procellarum.

Mare Humorum was not sampled by the Apollo program, so its precise age could not been determined yet. However, geologic mapping indicates that its age is in between that of the Imbrium and the Nectaris basins, suggesting an age of about 3.9 thousand million years (with an uncertainty of 500 million years).

Humorum is filled with a thick layer of mare basalt, believed to exceed 3 kilometres in thickness at the centre of the basin. On the north edge of Mare Humorum is the large crater Gassendi, which was considered as a possible landing site for Apollo 17.

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A computer-generated visualisation of a black hole or neutron star X-ray binary system is available from Media Relations on request. The image was produced using a visualisation tool provided by Rob Hynes of the Louisiana State University, USA.

Previously, these steady ‘relativistic jets’ were only seen from black holes which form part of a black hole X-ray binary, a system containing a black hole orbited by a normal star which is so close that the black hole's gravity can peel off the outer part of the normal star and suck in its gas through an accretion disk or disk of matter.

Using the extremely sensitive infrared Spitzer Space Telescope recently launched by NASA, the team discovered one of these steady jets of matter coming from a neutron star (a super-dense type of dead star) in an X-ray binary system. For many years scientists have debated whether there was something unique to black holes that fuelled relativistic jets. It is now clear that the jets must be fuelled by something that both black holes and neutron stars share.

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Hermit crab with a sea anemone on its shell.

Whereas sampling with different kinds of equipment is normally used to collect information on bottom fauna, a specially designed video rig has allowed the scientists to film 80 kilometres of seabed during their survey off the coast of northern Norway. The seabed in the area is characterised by deep fjords and shelf areas with fishing banks and intersecting channels. Many of the habitats found here are complex and not easily documented with standard sampling gears.

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