October 6, 2009
Space Ships to Crash Into the Moon This Friday!
The lunar south pole as it will appear on the night of impact. Photo Credit - NMSU / MSFC Tortugas Observatory.
On Friday, October 9, two space ships will crash into the moon, and you will be able to see it happen.
All you need to do is find the crater Cabeus, which is near the Moon’s south pole. Be watching at 11:30 UT (That’s 4:30 a.m. Pacific Time, 6:30 a.m. Central.) Bring your telescope. It should be a pretty good telescope. According to NASA:
“We expect the debris plumes to be visible through mid-sized backyard telescopes 10 inches and larger,” says Brian Day of NASA/Ames. Day is an amateur astronomer and the Education and Public Outreach Lead for LCROSS. “The initial explosions will probably be hidden behind crater walls, but the plumes will rise high enough above the crater’s rim to be seen from Earth.”
If you live in the eastern part of the United States or anywhere towards daylight (east) from there, it may be too bright. Hawaii is ideal within the US, but anywhere west of the Mississippi is a potential viewing spot. I live four blocks east of the Mississippi, so I guess I’ll have to drag my telescope down to the shore and canoe across for better viewing!
There is another way to see the impacts: Tune in NASA TV. Coverage starts at 3:15 a.m. PDT. In some areas, you may get that station on your local cable system.
But why are the spaceships crashing into the Moon? Has something gone terribly wrong? Are we being invaded by aliens?
Well, this is an experiment cooked up by NASA to see if there is water on the Moon. First, a rocket called The Centaur will hit the moon. This rocket weighs about 2,200 kg and it is going fast, so there will be a great deal of energy released. A huge plume of debris will be blown up as much as 10 kilometers. This plume will be observed from earth, the Hubble space telescope, and the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), and analyzed for presence of water.
However, close behind The Centaur will be the LCROSS space ship. This craft has instrumentation on it that will allow a much more detailed analysis of the plume. LCROSS will fly into the plume sent up by The Centaur, analyze the material really fast, and send its data back to earth. And then … it will also crash into the moon.
“If there’s water there, or anything else interesting, we’ll find it,” says Tony Colaprete of NASA Ames, the mission’s principal investigator.
LCROSS will hit the moon about four minutes after The Centaur. The most interesting statement in NASA’s press release regarding this experiment is probably this one:
“Remember, we’ve never done this before. We’re not 100% sure what will happen, and big surprises are possible.”
If you are interested in viewing this spectacular lunar experiment at a public event (and the public events are quite diverse as to what they offer, see if there is one in your area and refer to the LCROSS Viewer’s Guide.
Sign up for our free email newsletter and receive the best stories from Smithsonian.com each week.
13 Comments »
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
[...] I finished reading This New Ocean: The Story of the First Space Age just in time to witness not one, but TWO, NASA probes slam into the Moon. And, this time, it’s deliberate, not a Soviet catastrophe! But why are the spaceships [...]
err….. Time Machine… Moon explosion anyone?
http://members.cox.net/renegade_sith/miscjunk/mooncrash.jpg
[...] http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/science/2009/10/06/space-ships-to-crash-into-the-moon-this-friday/ [...]
This is bad science plain and simple. India recently stated publicly that their instruments have confirmed water on the moon which NASA has had confirmation of this information since 1971…look it up. Although the U.N. has space treaties which state an agreement between all signatories that this very type of action(weapons presents/use in space and defacing celestial bodies)is unacceptable and against the law. The U.S.A. is not a signature of said Treaty. No wonder the U.S. didn’t sign it. This is beyond words! To use a rocket to bomb the moon to ‘check’ for what we already know is there will possibly create more problems since NASA has admitted to not knowing what the effects will be….G-d help us!
Oh, that’s just wonderful. These idiots “don’t know what will happen”! What if they manage to knock the moon off its orbit? Or perhaps they open a crack in the rock that just keeps on going and the whole bloody moon explodes. Sheesh! I’m digging a deep hole to hid in.
my name is jonah I’m a 9yr old boy .that could reverse the gravitational pull could it not correct me if I am wrong? and what exactly what are you going to use to blow it up?
ps please write back.
if this was another county doing it we’d bomb them to stop them from doing it. idiots…..
Three things.
1- From the size of the Centaur and LCROSS Ship (look at the image in the LCROSS Viewer’s guide) I *SERIOUSLY* doubt that something maybe the size of a school bus (MAYBE that big), or even possibly two of them, for that matter, will create enough of a blast to knock a solid chunk of Rock out of orbit. Especially when you consider, that chunk of rock gets pummeled almost every day by hundreds if not thousands of meteorites (hence all the preexisting craters) and hasn’t budged from its path in 4.6 billion years.
2- I’m gonna go ahead and NOT mention the fact that most of the folks in NASA are, in fact, Rocket Scientists (go figure). and since most of us have at one time pointed out that something we were attempting to do was “Not Rocket Science” It stands to reason that a Rocket Scientist, one who DOES Rocket Science, is not an idiot. Science, when you break it down to basics, is about trial and error. Sure you can try and control the chaos of trial and error, but ultimately at some point you’ll have to do something that you don’t know what will happen.
3- India did in fact say that they have found evidence of water on the moon. There is a wonderful article located here ( http://tinyurl.com/lcf9lh ) on the subject. HOWEVER, evidence does not constitute proof. Just ask anyone you know who is involved in criminal justice. Evidence does *lead* to proof 90% of the time, but it, in and of itself, is not proof. If India found evidence, NASA is holding a trial to prove that the moon is guilty of hiding water from us for the last 4 billion years.
NASA’s moon crash to find water.
My name is Rennie and I am no scientist.
Crashing a spaceship into the moon is madness, did NASA expect the Moon to react like the Earth which to me dose not make any sense because by now we all know they are two different places with totally different events.
Let me go into details now, we have seen when man landed on the moon that there were no gravity and thing moved in slow motion, my point is even when you drop a serious boom on our Earth it sends out shock wave miles away and even days after you can still record the shockwaves.
What I am saying is on-like Earth, they will not see any results because there will be a longer delay like days, months and even years which can cause serious damages to the moon and then our planet Earth.
The moon is a peaceful place that provides us with light in our Earth orbital night phases and spiritual energy that helps sustain the cycle of life on this Earth.
The Earth is not the Moon and the Moon is not the Earth, all the planets are structured in place for a reason and only when the time comes which is soon then we will understand. We are destroying our Earth and now we are trying to destroy other planets, why can’t we focus on cleaning up our hate and mess that we have created on our planet Earth.
Br Rennie Peters.
Why is our government having such a difficult time deciding which projects to approve and which to reject? Here’s an easy guideline for you (since you’re having problems with decision making), in the future ask the following:
Would our country, AS A WHOLE, experience a benefit from this project AND would the country suffer a negative impact if we elect NOT to approve this project?
Applying the above litmus test to the question: Should we slam a rocket into the moon? A 5 year old could make the conclusive decision: NO!
Will the White House “people” pull their head out of their moon and start running this country with economics in mind? I am willing to put my profitable law practice on hold and offer my services as a financial decision maker for the country. If interested, please run my background check and contact me at my law office. My qualification are as follows: I have always run my business in the “green” since inception, I earned my B.A. and J.D. without going into debt (no scholarship; I actually watched how I spent my money and worked throughout college), and most importantly I have a backbone.
I look forward to your call,
Kristine McCardle
Attorney at Law
Financial Consultant to the Country (just trying out my new title)
I have to side with Russell, and have to express some confidence in the Rocket scientists.
I also appreciate his explanations that completely debunk all of the uninformed wild ass guesses.
Thanks Russell…. and for the rest of you, why worry, the world’s gonna end in 2012 anyway aint it!
Strange cloud over Moscow
Just like i said back then, you will soon see all the effects of:
NASA’s moon crash to find water.
I am sorry to see what is taking place on our Earth with all the destruction that is taking place, serious rain without any storms is just some of the strange events that are already with us and not forgetting what is forthcoming.
All the money that have been spent on probing other planets and developing weapons should have been spent on building a better life for people, creating systems that could preserves our knowledge in the event of destruction, teaching us about love and how to help our civilization to develop their spiritual bodies which is the true power in us, not hate.
Our Earth is beginning to adjust itself because of man’s destruction to this Earth and to himself. Why would a man destroy all that another man has built and then try to help him build it back, it just don’t make sense to me.
How much can our earth take? Just look at our efforts to drill for oil and gas, to deprive the Earth of its energy that is needed to keep it in motion or is it all about money and not to care about what we are causing or creating as they say, hell on Earth.
I think we should call a world peace in silence because all the power is within us and not when we die or not alive. I am not talking about religion or any God’s, I am saying there is a spiritual force in all of us as we live on this Earth not when we die. The thing is they teach us only what they wanted us to know, they give us only what they wanted to give us so that’s all we will know in this life unless we counter that energy.
Love is a simple expiation of what I am trying to explain, love is the energy of expression and inner spiritual energy that can communicate with another.
So in my views, we can ask for that silence, even if some people don’t corporate that energy will still be created. But I don’t know if we can still call for such silence as our Earth has became so distorted with negative energy and hate that it might be too late.