NASA to Bomb the Moon

NASA WILL TOMORROW LAUNCH A SPECTACULAR MISSION TO BOMB THE MOON. Their LCROSS mission will blast off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, carrying a missile that will blast a hole in the lunar surface at twice the speed of a bullet.

Image above:

Artist's rendering of the LCROSS spacecraft and Centaur separation

The missile, a Centaur rocket, will be steered by a shepherding spacecraft that will guide it towards its target - a crater close to the Moon's south pole. Scientists expect the blast to be so powerful that a huge plume of debris will be ejected.

LCROSS Lunar Impact

7:31 a.m. EDT/4:31 a.m. PDT

Friday Oct. 9

An approximately 1.5 hour Live NASA TV Broadcast is planned for the LCROSS impacts starting at 6:15 a.m. EDT/3:15 a.m. PDT, Oct. 9, on NASA TV and www.nasa.gov/ntv.

The broadcast includes:

Live footage from spacecraft camera

Real-time telemetry based animation

Views of LCROSS Mission and Science Operations

Broadcast commentary with expert guests

Prepared video segments

Views of the public impact viewing event at NASA Ames

Possible live footage from the University of Hawaii, 88-inch telescope on Mauna Kea.

The live LCROSS Post-Impact News Conference will be 10 a.m. EDT/7 a.m. PDT on NASA TV and www.nasa.gov/ntv.

See Scientific American's

NASA's Mission to Bomb the Moon

NASA will tomorrow launch a spectacular mission to bomb the Moon. Their LCROSS mission will blast off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, carrying a missile that will blast a hole in the lunar surface at twice the speed of a bullet. The missile, a Centaur rocket, will be steered by a shepherding spacecraft that will guide it towards its target - a crater close to the Moon's south pole. Scientists expect the blast to be so powerful that a huge plume of debris will be ejected.

DISCOVER : NASA has chosen the final destination for the LCROSS lunar impacting probe: the crater Cabeus A, near the Moon’s south pole.

So why is NASA smacking a probe into the Moon at high speed, and why there?

The idea is that over millions and billions of years, a lot of comets have hit the Moon. The water from these comets hits the surface and sublimates away… but if any settles at the bottoms of deep craters near the Moon’s poles, these permanently shadowed regions can act as a refrigerator, keeping the water from disappearing. It can stay there, locked up as ice, for a long, long time. Some estimates indicate there could be billions of tons of ice near the Moon’s south pole.

Detecting that water is tough. Radar results have been inconclusive, with some people saying there’s lots of water, and others saying there’s none at all.

The choice of Cabeus A for the impact site is a good one. It’s near the south pole, it’s a likely spot for there to be ice under the surface, it’s on the near side of the Moon, so people back here on Earth can observe it, but close enough to the limb that any ejected water can be seen. See map here.