The orbiting sister spacecraft to two NASA probes that
slammed into the moon last week has beamed home images and temperature maps of
the two intentional crashes.
The Diviner instrument aboard NASA's powerful Lunar Reconnaissance
Orbiter took infrared observations of the impact, flying over the
moon crash site of the agency's LCROSS probe and its Centaur rocket stage
about 90 seconds after impact at a height of about 50 miles (80 km) up.
The LCROSS mission is aimed at detecting signs of water ice
in the permanently shadowed craters at the moon's south pole by purposely
crashing spacecraft into the lunar surface.
The mission's 2.2-ton empty rocket stage walloped a crater
called Cabeus at 7:31 a.m. EDT (1131 GMT) on Friday. Four minutes later, the LCROSS
shepherding craft followed suite.
After the impact, Diviner observed the site on eight
successive orbits, and obtained a series of thermal maps before and after the
impact at approximately two hour intervals.
Diviner is an instrument that maps the surface temperature
of the moon in the infrared range of the light spectrum. The thermal maps taken
of the Cabeus crater last week show the thermal signature of the impact.
LCROSS itself observed
the crater made by the Centaur stage impact in its last few moments before
its own death plunge. It still remains to be seen, however, whether the crashes
created the vast plume of moon dirt that scientists predicted would blast out
of the crater up to heights of 6.2 miles (10 km), where it could be lit up by
the sun and visible to observers on Earth.
So far, astronomers using ground-based telescopes and the
Hubble Space Telescope in orbit have not reported seeing
any ejecta plume, but have cautioned that more time is needed to be sure.
Scientists hoped to be able to scan that portion of the
plume from space and Earth to determine if any water ice was present in the
debris cloud. Finding proof of buried water ice — long suggested by the
presence of hydrogen-bearing material at the lunar south pole — could be a boon
for NASA since it could be a potential resource for future astronauts.
Last month, scientists announced
definitive proof that small amounts of water exist elsewhere on the moon in
a molecular form attached to lunar dirt.
NASA launched the $79 million LCROSS mission – short for
Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite – in June alongside the Lunar
Reconnaissance Orbiter.
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