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Decades-Old Soviet Reflector Spotted On the Moon

Posted by Soulskill on from the always-in-the-last-place-you-look dept.

cremeglace writes "No one had seen a laser reflector that Soviet scientists had left on the moon almost 40 years ago, despite years of searching. Turns out searchers had been looking kilometers in the wrong direction. On 22 April, a team of physicists finally saw an incredibly faint flash from the reflector, which was ferried across the lunar surface by the Lunokhod 1 rover. The find comes thanks to NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which last month imaged a large area where the rover was reported to have been left. Then the researchers, led by Tom Murphy of the University of California, San Diego, could search one football-field-size area at a time until they got a reflection."

5 of 147 comments (clear)

  1. now we are six by at10u8 · · Score: 4, Informative

    This means there are now six useable reflectors. See the list from the investigators.

    1. Re:now we are six by sznupi · · Score: 3, Informative

      The list to which you linked to includes Lunokhod 2. There are five, now all usable.

      --
      One that hath name thou can not otter
  2. Re:Why is this a surprise? by LWATCDR · · Score: 2, Informative

    But it could have been damaged by the environment. The thermal cycling is pretty extreme on the moon.

    --
    See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
  3. Re:why bother ? by sznupi · · Score: 4, Informative

    Lunokhod 2 is in the most northerly position out of all available retroreflectors on the Moon, which will contribute to much more precise data about the Moon "wobble" (since the distance of Lunokhod 2 is greatly affected by it, in comparison to something near the center of the view from Earth)

    --
    One that hath name thou can not otter
  4. Yeah ! Finally ! by mbone · · Score: 2, Informative

    This is way cool. The LLR (Lunar Last Ranging) people have been looking for this for a long, long time.

    This (by providing a new fiducial point on the Moon) will significantly help Lunar geodesy.

    Note, by the way, that LLR returns are always exactly 1 photon per shot, so this flash was no fainter than any other LLR return.