Washington, October 09: In what scientist Amitabha Ghosh called an “incredible moment”, NASA successfully crashed its rocket into a crater near the lunar south pole of the moon’s surface in search for hidden ice.
No light flash was visible in the thermal images broadcast on NASA television, as the 2.3-tonne rocket impacted the Cabeus crater at 1131 GMT.
A second shepherding spacecraft flew through the debris plume, collecting and relaying key data back to Earth before it too plowed into the lunar surface, according to the US space agency.
NASA is broadcasting the crashes live on the Internet. Telescopes across the world are trained to the moon for the event.
According to NASA sources, enough data has been collected to answer basic questions and the results are likely to be out within 24 hours.
Astronomers said before the impact that new data from $79 million LCROSS mission will complement the earlier findings because water is believed to be much more abundant in the craters. The findings could aid future manned missions to the moon, which could establish long-term outposts.
NASA scientists said that it is possible for frozen water to have remained in the moon’s craters for billions of years, because the bottoms of the craters are never reached by sunlight and protect any ice from evaporation into the thin lunar atmosphere.
–Agencies–