NASA will Smash a Satellite+2.2-ton rocket Into the Moon Friday.
3:14 P.M. — NASA will throw a one-two punch at the big old moon Friday and the whole world will have ringside seats for the lunar dust-up.
NASA will send a used-up spacecraft slamming into the moon's south pole to kick up a massive plume of lunar dirt and then scour it to see if there's any water or ice spraying up. The idea is to confirm the theory that water—a key resource if people are going to go back to the moon—is hidden below the barren moonscape.
The crashing spaceship was launched in June along with an orbiter that's now mapping the lunar surface. LCROSS—short for Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite and pronounced L-Cross—is on a collision course with the moon, attached to an empty 2.2-ton rocket that helped get the probe off the ground.
Thursday evening, about 10 hours before smashing into the moon, LCROSS and its empty rocket will separate.
Then comes the first part of the lunar assault.Friday At 7:31 a.m. EDT, the larger empty rocket will crash into a permanently dark crater and kick up a 6.2 mile high spray of debris.
The two ships will smash into the moon at 5,600 mph, more than seven times the speed of sound. The explosion will have the force of 1.5 tons of TNT and throw 772,000 pounds of lunar dirt out of the crater. It will create a new crater — inside an old one — about half the size of an Olympic swimming pool,
Turn on NASA TV. The space agency will broadcast the action live from the Moon, with coverage beginning Friday morning at 3:15 am PDT (10:15 UT).
http://www.nasa.gov/
10-09-2009, 07:16 AM
NASA will Smash a Satellite+2.2-ton rocket Into the Moon Friday
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