Comments on: LCROSS Impacts Moon, Science Data Pending

By: Nexus

Nexus — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 23:50:07 +0000

It's a shame the seismometers on the Moon are no longer working. The LCROSS impact could have told us a fair bit about the interior.

By: DavidWheelerPhD

DavidWheelerPhD — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 19:00:41 +0000

Impact plume can be seen in center of video just after it switches to Near IR view.

Time marker: 1:20 – 1:22

By: Maxwell

Maxwell — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 18:14:13 +0000

What we saw was the last frame of data that left the spacecraft, not the last image it took. There is some lag between imaging, processing, and the up link I suspect.

The problem stems from the size of the payload they were allowed. They would have needed a bigger camera and better processing equipment, which would have added weight and cost.

Ideally if they hit the pay dirt they were aiming for, there would have been nothing to visually see because the centaur would have slammed into muddy ice and minerals instead of hard rocks.
So this would appear to be good news.

By: Fraser Cain

Fraser Cain — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 16:50:50 +0000

I've got to say they totally botched this as a live event. You're crashing a spaceship into the freaking Moon! I was hoping to see the ground rushing towards me at top speed, until the craters were terrifyingly close. One last high res view of the lunar surface, and then loss of signal…

By: SuperKevin

SuperKevin — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 16:14:18 +0000

I didn't see anything, hope we get some more detailed video's soon.

By: SteveZodiac

SteveZodiac — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 15:30:16 +0000

hmm, the MMTO video is not much better than the NASA one, I swear I saw some red dots on the IR video but they could just be noise. If there is no plume it might be even more interesting, there could be something like mud in that crater so the spacecraft just went "schlop" when it hit.