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Ion Rocket to Map Moon with X-Rays

Posted by CmdrTaco on

jralls writes "The Guardian is reporting that a European ion-rocket has taken the last year to reach the moon and is about to enter lunar orbit. Once it slows and gets into a very low orbit, it will probe the surface with x-rays in an effort to solve the long standing puzzle of the moon's origin."

2 of 172 comments (clear)

  1. The moon conspiracy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    Now we can resolve the conspiracy of whethere the US actually made it to the moon or not.

  2. Learn what?? by EmbeddedJanitor · · Score: 0, Flamebait
    So what do we learn?

    Hypothesis: mars is red. Send probe, take snaps. Yup it's red.

    Hypothesis: maybe Mas has water. Send probe, probe gets rusty. Yup Mars has water.

    So we learn a bunch of things about Mars, but what do they help? Most space exploration is just a form of "infotainment" with very little use to anyone. There are a gazzillion unexplored issues on planet earth that are surely more important for us to be investigating.

    --
    Engineering is the art of compromise.