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Autumn’s Arrival

October 13, 2016

WHOI’s newest ship, the R/V Neil Armstrong, catches the late afternoon light as the harvest moon, the full moon closest to the autumnal equinox, rises above the ship. The state-of-the-art, Ocean Class research vessel was named after the famed U.S. astronaut who was the first man to set foot on the moon. The Armstrong is the first oceanographic research vessel named for a space explorer, but the link between space exploration and ocean science is not new. Each of NASA’s space shuttles was named for a famous oceanographic vessel, including the space shuttle Atlantis, which was named after the first U.S. ship built for ocean research, WHOI’s ketch Atlantis.(Photo by Andy Girard, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)