Moon Plume Kicks up Scientific Data

Posted by Michael Bradbury in Astronomy, Physics and Chemistry, SciClips, Space on 10 20th, 2009 | no responses

Cabeus Crater, impact zone for LCROSS mission

When NASA smashed an expensive satellite and rocket into the moon, many people wondered why the space agency would do such a thing.

Then on October 9, with hundreds of thousands of people watching, the big plume of dirt and ice that would indicate a successful mission was barely a blip on the radar.

So what happened? Well, it’s still early too tell what the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite picked up when a centaur rocket smashed into a crater on the lunar south pole.

But NASA is saying the mission was a success. Now scientists just have to sift through the mountain of data to determine what they have.

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