NASA's LCROSS Mission is scheduled to impact the Moon tomorrow morning (Friday October 9) at 4:31:19 a.m. PDT (with a second impact at 4:35:45 a.m). Weather permitting we will be using the Hale Telescope with its adaptive optics to observe the impact. We are just one of many professional observatories that will be looking to see what the impact plume looks like and if it contains water. If all goes well we will have cool stuff for you here sometime tomorrow.
Don't fret if you don't have your own observatory to see the crash. There are lots of ways that you can watch online and elsewhere and they are detailed here. If you will be looking on your own, you probably need at least a 12-inch telescope to catch the crash. Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day has a great photo to help you find the right crater. Be sure to also check out the Guide to Seeing the LCROSS Event from Universe Today.
I saw the headline and said whhhattt?? then I saw the story and said oh....more money waisted...damn
ReplyDeleteI really hope that there are no bad effects from bombing the moon. It just seems insane.
ReplyDeleteI don't think that you need to worry about any bad affects.
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