No, we haven’t discovered WMD’s there, it’s part of a NASA experiment:
A NASA spacecraft and its trusty rocket stage are drawing ever closer to the moon to intentionally crash to their doom Friday, all in the name of science.
The cosmic collisions are expected to kick up tons of moon dirt in giant debris plumes that will then be scanned for signs of water ice suspected to be buried beneath the floor of a permanently shadowed crater at the lunar south pole.
“Everybody is feeling very excited,” said Victoria Friedensen, NASA’s program executive for the LCROSS mission at the heart of the moon crash. “There is a great sense of anticipation.
NASA launched the LCROSS probe in June along with a powerful lunar orbiter that is currently circling the moon to determine whether water ice, which could be a vital resource for astronauts in the future, actually exists in the perpetual darkness of craters at the moon’s south pole.
Since then, the $79 million LCROSS — short for Lunar Crater Observation Sensing Satellite — has made three long loops around the Earth while attached to an empty Centaur rocket stage, its first weapon in the upcoming lunar double whammy.
The two vehicles are due to separate late tonight and the first impact is set for 7:31 a.m. ET. That’s when the 42-foot (13-meter) long Centaur rocket stage will plow into the crater Cabeus at the moon’s south pole. NASA will start broadcasting the event live on NASA TV at 6:30 a.m. ET.
Brendan Loy has observation details:
The opening salvo of our War on the Moon will supposedly be visible from Earth tonight — shock and awe, baby! — to anyone with a “mid-sized backyard telescope” with a “diameter of 10-12 inches or larger.” If you don’t have one of those, you can attend a public viewing near you. Or you can just sit in front of your computer and watch live on NASA TV. The broadcast will start at 10:15 UT/6:15am EDT/4:15am MDT/3:15am PDT.
The actual impacts will occur at 11:31:19 UT (5:31am MDT) and 11:35:45 UT (5:35am MDT), with the expected “plumes” appearing in the minutes that follow. That means the attack show will occur during darkness west of the Mississippi. Here’s a page with detailed tips on amateur observing of the bombing experiment, including where on the Moon’s surface to look:
Sounds cool, but I’m a little worried about the retaliatory strike.
October 8th, 2009 at 4:18 pm
Just what we need on Earth — debris plumes to combat global warming.
October 9th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
Well, here’s some shots of it with the Palomar telescope:
http://www.astro.caltech.edu/palomar/lcross.html
Seems the big, bright predicted plume was a total bust.