The plan is to slam two unmanned spacecraft into a dark crater at the lunar south pole, kicking up a six-mile high dust cloud that may contain water.
British researchers helped Nasa pick the spot for the drama, which will be broadcast live on the American space agency's website.
It is believed water ice could lie at the bottom of dark craters at the Moon's poles, where temperatures are lower than minus 170C.
The crashing spacecraft consist of an orbiter, LCROSS (Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite), which is now mapping the lunar surface, and its 2.2 tonne empty Centaur launch rocket.
Both are currently on collision course with the Moon and still attached together.
In the early hours, British time, the probe and rocket will separate. Then at 12.31pm the larger rocket will smash into the crater at 5,600 mph, blasting out 350 tonnes of debris in a 6.2 mile high plume.
Following close behind, the LCROSS satellite beaming live pictures back to Earth will fly through the material and four minutes later plunge into the crater itself. LCROSS will trigger its own dust cloud a third of the size of the first one.
As the debris is propelled into sunlight, scientists on Earth will study its composition with ground-based telescopes.
To follow the current development take a look at the NASA Blog of LCROSS Flight Director Paul Tompkins on http://blogs.nasa.gov/cm/blog/lcrossfdblog.blog/posts/post_1254984713637.html
NUKE HIM!!!
ReplyDeleteBeware, the aliens will retaliate and bomb earth to find out if there are intelligent life forms on this planet ;P
ReplyDeleteNUKE'EM TO!!!
ReplyDeleteDO IT UNCLE SAM STYLE!!!
Why not just send another manned mission to the moon to collect samples? Oh I forgot, we were never there in the first place, so it might be hard to go back again, wtf NASA! Stop wasting money, just build the starship Enterprise and let's get our asses out into space already! Geewiz!
ReplyDeleteTo find frozen water on the moon would make it "easier" to build lunar bases - and just imagine how much people would be willing to pay for bottled moon water ... that's definitely gonna be the next caviar or truffles!
ReplyDelete