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Front Row Seats To NASA's Lunar Impact
itwbennett writes "Tomorrow morning at 7:30 EDT, NASA is going to crash a probe into the moon as part of its LCROSS (Lunar CRater Observing and Sensing Satellite) mission, the main purpose of which is to discover if there's any water on the moon. 'If you happen to have a 10-12" telescope (or larger) then you might be able to see the plume from your backyard,' says blogger Peter Smith. 'For the rest of us, the impact will be streamed live over the web in a few places. NASA will have a feed, beginning at 6:15 EDT. The NASA feed includes live footage from the spacecraft itself as well as expert commentary and other goodies. Astronomy service SLOOH is offering a double-shot of earth-bound feeds, with one feed from New Hampshire and the other from Arizona. The SLOOH feeds start at 6:30 am EDT.'" Update: Matt_dk adds a link to a viewing guide to the impact, writing that "Amateur astronomers need a 10-inch or bigger telescope to make observations."
Maybe it is because of the extremely low temperature at the moon's poles and that any robotic being would not survive. I also understand that any water ice exposed to the sun on the moon would almost instantly sublimate, so I guess that an impact lifting tons of moon regolith is the most logical step in seeing water ice for a short moment, right before it sublimates because of the sun's energy it will be exposed to.
I'll be at the Mauna Kea Visitor Information Station, either looking through their scopes (14-16") or trying to get some pictures with my cameras. Unfortunately, my shift up on the summit ended Wednesday morning, so I have no excuse (or desire, really) to go up top. I might wander up to the LCROSS comms center at Hale Pohaku at some point, though.
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
I just saw this video on CNN
There are also a bunch of videos on you tube
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Take some science class. Things lose heat in vacuum by emitting radiation (typically infrared at our temperature). You might also learn that crashing is easier than landing (less delta-V), kinetic energy is a bitch at that kind of speed and will create an explosion, and people here on Earth actually use explosions to excavate material, not robotic spoons.
whatcouldpossiblygowrong? This reminds me of the scene in the 2008 whatever version of the Time Machine where the moon was blasted on to make condos or someshit and it went horribly wrong.