![]() Matter could even be knocked up 30 miles (50 km) or more, headded, and the flash might be visible through amateur-class telescopes withapertures as small as 10 to 12 inches. Theshepherding spacecraft will watch the plume of gas and dust rise about 3.7miles high (6 km), "shaped kind of like an upside-down lampshade,"Colaprete said. "For the first time, we'll see whatit is composed of, what secrets it is guarding." "We'regoing to lift matter up from the crater that could have been in shadow for 2billion years," Colaprete said. Impacts ofsimilar size happen roughly three or four times a week on the moon. Althoughthere is a fair amount of uncertainty as to exactly how big an effect thisimpact will have, Colaprete estimated it will toss up roughly 770 million pounds (350,000 metrictons) of debris into the sunlight, carving a crater about 12 feet deep (4meters) and 80 feet wide (25 meters). (2,300 kg) has roughly the mass of a big sportsutility vehicle, slams into the lunar surface at a steep 85 degree angle, itwill be hurtling through space at about ?5,590 mph (nearly 9,000 kph). Whenthe rocket stage, which at 5,100 lbs. This smaller,bare-bones probe has two main parts - the roughly 6-foot-wide (2 meter) Centaurrocket stage used to boost it to the moon, and a shepherding spacecraft thatwill accurately guide the Centaur at the crater and then separate. ![]() Instead ofarriving at the moon in a few days like LRO will, LCROSS will orbit Earth twicefor about 110 days, using Earth's gravity help sling it on a collisioncourse with the lunar south pole in early October. The moon'spoles are mysteries in many ways ?- "we have much better maps of Mars thanof our own moon's polar regions," said Craig Tooley, NASA?s LRO projectmanager. Pastmissions have revealed the poles are rich in hydrogen - a possible sign ofwater - and by looking at the aftermath of the lunar double whammy, scientistshope to confirm once and for all whether ice exists on the moon. ?Impactingthe moon to do science ? has gone on since before I was born, frankly,? DanielAndrews, NASA?s LCROSS project manager, told reporters in a Monday briefing.?What?s different as LCROSS is that it is tactically employed as an impactor.So everything we do with our mission design is designed around maximizing thevalue of our impact.? China?s Chang?e 1 orbiter also ended its mission with a lunarcrash earlier this year. Last week, Japan?s Kaguyalunar orbiter was intentionally commanded to slam into the lunar surface at theend of a successful observationmission. LCROSSis not the first mission to crash into the moon. The impactor?s final target depends on when it actuallylaunches toward the moon, mission managers said Monday. ![]() This hitchhiker mission isdesigned to bite into Shackleton Crater, or other crater, on the south pole ofthe moon twice, with the main impact packing a punch equal to more than aton-and-a-half of TNT. The probe will circle the moonin an orbit over both poles for a year, and its mission could get extended upto five years to serve as a communications relay for future lunar missions,such as a moon lander or rover. The data it collects on radiation and lunar chemistry could alsoinfluence the design of potential settlements. The kind ofimages LRO will gather are needed for safe, highly precise moon landings atmore hazardous places than astronauts ever went to with the Apollomissions. ![]() The best resolution until now from lunar orbit wasroughly 20 meters. Its high-resolution camera can imagethe moon to about 12 inch detail (30 cm), "which no one has everhad," Colaprete said. The LunarReconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), LCROSS? moon-bound partner craft, will map themoon's surface from orbit with unprecedented detail, capable even of imagingthe tracks that lunar rovers left behind. ![]()
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