Famed in festival, story, and song the best known full moon is the Harvest Moon.

What are those bright lights in the sky ahead?

On July 22nd this GSLV (Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle) MkIII rocket vanished from sight into a cloud bank an instant after this dramatic snapshot was taken.

"Oh my God! Look at that picture over there! Here's the Earth coming up. Wow is that pretty!"

About 12 seconds into this video, something unusual happens.

This moon is doomed. Mars, the red planet named for the Roman god of war, has two tiny moons, Phobos and Deimos, whose names are derived from the Greek for Fear and Panic.

This is a gibbous Moon. More Earthlings are familiar with a full moon, when the entire face of Luna is lit by the Sun, and a crescent moon, when only a sliver of the Moon's face is lit.

Last Sunday when the Moon was young its sunlit crescent hung low near the western horizon at sunset.

What would it be like to explore the Moon? NASA's Apollo missions gave humans just this chance in the late 1960s and early 1970s.