Twin Probes Crash Into the Moon 79
Posted
by
timothy
from the as-promised dept.
from the as-promised dept.
SchrodingerZ writes "After their yearlong mission to map the Moon's gravitational field, twin probes Ebb and Flow crashed into the lunar surface, ending the GRAIL mission. The crashes were controlled events, each impacting 30 seconds apart from each other. The twin spacecraft were running low on maneuvering fuel and NASA, not wanting the craft to fall on historical sites such as the Apollo landing sites, redirected their flight patterns to impart the far (dark) side of the moon. Their impact sites were named after Sally Ride, the first American woman in space. 'During the news conference last week, Maria T. Zuber, the principal investigator, said the probes would be crashing into a "non-sunlit" part of the surface.' When the site becomes sunlit again in several weeks, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will attempt to take pictures of the craters the probes undoubtedly made in the lunar soil."
It is just me... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Dark != Far (Score:3, Interesting)
...the rotation of the moon just about exactly matches the revolution around the Earth
I think we can say exactly, as it's not a coincidence that the rotations align like that, it's a stable configuration of two bodies in orbit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_locking [wikipedia.org]
Re:Lunar Warming (Score:2, Interesting)
How would you feel if some alien species arrives at our galaxy and decides to throw their used-up dilithium on your porch.
What if the moon turns out to be made of cheese after all, and the probes punch a hole in the protective crust. The moon might deflate and we end up covered in cheese. Yuck!
Sillyness besides, I find it quite amazing that the USA decides they can abuse the moon as their public junk yard and just dump their garbage there.