We report on a determination of the Earth-Moon distance, performed by students of an Italian high school, based on measurements of the time delay of the “echo” in the radio communications between NASA mission control in Houston and the Apollo astronauts on the lunar surface. By using open-source audio-editing software, the distance can be determined with accuracy, allowing us to observe the effect of the eccentricity of the orbit of the Moon.
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© 2009 American Association of Physics Teachers.
2009
American Association of Physics Teachers
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