NightSky.ie » Moon

No visible 10km Plume from LCROSS impact

paul — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 15:20:12 +0000

According to NASA TV there was no significant visible plume from the impact of the spacecraft. There is good spectographic data and it does show Sodium a cause for some excitement as it wasn’t expected.

Regarding the spectorgraphic data, they are being cautiously optimistic despite the lack of a visible plume, but they point blank refused to make any definitive statements about water. Most of the real science will be done using spectographic analysis and we will just have to keep waiting.

LCROSS Image Crater

LCROSS Impacts!

paul — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 11:42:14 +0000

Moments ago LCROSS impacted into the moon. I watched it live on NASA live streaming…Will take a while to get any details…will keep you posted

Image of the LCROSS Lunar Impact site!

paul — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 13:54:19 +0000

In less than 24 hours the LCROSS will smash into the Cabeus crater 100km from the Lunar south pole. I’ve already blogged that the idea is to smash into the Lunar surface with one part of the spacecraft, and have the second part fly through the resultant 10km cloud of debris and gather data to see what it found below the surface of the Moon… Eh..Water we hope…

So here is a picture which shows you where the impact will be. Cabeus, a 100km wide crater. Good Luck to LCROSS

Target Crater Cabeus - Image Credit: NMSU/MSFC Tortugas Observatory

Harvest Moon taken from the Irish Nightsky

paul — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 20:54:41 +0000

There might be some clouds around, but there was just enough time for me to take this picture of the Harvest Moon.

Taken in Dublin from my back garden using Nikon D50 Camera with a 300mm Lens, 200ISO, 1,000 shutter speed. Hope you like it!

Throwing rocks at the Moon

paul — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 22:09:49 +0000

If you are going to throw rocks at the Moon, you should try doing it NASA style. There is just over a week to go before the LCROSS (Lunar CRater Observation Sensing Satellite) mission sends the Centaur Upper stage rocket crashing into the Moon, creating a 10km plume near the Moon’s southern pole. If you have a 10″ or bigger scope you might even get to see it…. Four minutes later the sheparding spacecraft does a flyby through the debris, and sends data back to earth before it too slams into the moon.

If there is water, we should know fairly quickly and hopefully get some indication of how much. That is really the question. How much are we likely to find. Only 9 days to impact!

LCROSS Centaur Separation

You can track the mission at http://lcross.arc.nasa.gov/index.htm

Water Water everywhere….

paul — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 09:26:36 +0000

It doesn’t rain but it pours! Certainly thats what it feels like when within just a short few hours you start to hear about water on the moon (yes the moon!) and now on Mars.

Given the fact that water may be more abundant than previously thought it is reasonable to deduce that we can use this information to help us decide possible future landing sites for when we finally send men back to the Moon. The water was found on the far side of the moon, and the amounts are reasonably small (tiny really), and not all of it is H2O, with HO (Hydroxl a water molecule consisting of one Hydrogen and one Oxygen atom) making up the most of it.

But water is water (almost) and given that we have now found more than we expected, this is good news…but lets see what happens next.

Source - Nasa