NASA has announced the time&TV coverage of Lcross impact

goose2002 · 09-10-2009 12:01pm

Dr Pepper wrote: »

I read yesterday, Hubble was going to be trained on it. Could be hours/days before we get those pics though.

As far as I know, Hubble cannot be used to observe the moon. Its image sensors are extremely sensitive, so much so that they would be damaged by the brightness of the moon from sunlight. They have to take the moon and the sun into consideration when directing it.

lord lucan · 09-10-2009 12:06pm

News conference at 15.00,should be interesting!

Beeker · 09-10-2009 12:12pm

lord lucan wrote: »

News conference at 15.00,should be interesting!

Yeah, but lets not forget this is science and you don't always get what you think! Better to have tried and got nothing, then not to have tried at all.
A number of things could have happened, perhaps the crater was deeper than expected and the plume did not go high enought to be see in sunlight? Moon regolith is very dark afterall and may not have reflected.

Lets wait for the data!

lostexpectation · 09-10-2009 12:23pm

wasn't the indian satillite supposed to have been looking at it but that broke, japanese sat finished too?

lostexpectation · 09-10-2009 12:24pm

joining the stream it wasn't very clear what was happening, i never heard it say now the probe has hit...

Dr Pepper · 09-10-2009 12:26pm

goose2002 wrote: »

As far as I know, Hubble cannot be used to observe the moon. Its image sensors are extremely sensitive, so much so that they would be damaged by the brightness of the moon from sunlight. They have to take the moon and the sun into consideration when directing it.

That's interesting. Never knew that before. You'd expect the Sun to be a no-go area for Hubble alright but I thought the moon would be safe enough.

Anyway, just to prove I'm not going crazy

, the below quote is taken from this page I read yesterday (not saying it's true necessarily though):

Observatories expected to participate in the study include the newly refurbished Hubble Space Telescope, Hawaii's Keck and Gemini telescopes, the Magdelena Ridge and Apache Ridge observatories in New Mexico, the MMT Observatory in Arizona and the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) now circling the moon.

Beeker · 09-10-2009 12:33pm

Dr Pepper wrote: »

That's interesting. Never knew that before. You'd expect the Sun to be a no-go area for Hubble alright but I thought the moon would be safe enough.

Anyway, just to prove I'm not going crazy , the below quote is taken from this page I read yesterday (not saying it's true necessarily though):

It was true before that Hubble could not view the moon because of the brightness, but new instruments on board now allow it to do so. Image below was taken by Hubble a while ago of the Taurus-Littrow Valley, the landing site of Apollo 17 in december 1972. Image below it is from Apollo 17 {Not Hubble}

lostexpectation · 09-10-2009 12:43pm

1230 GMT (8:30 a.m. EDT)
Astronomers at Palomar Observatory outside of San Diego report they saw no evidence of an impact plume through the 200-inch Hale Telescope. Outfitted with adaptive optics, the telescope has a resolution of about 180 meters per pixel, according to Scott Kardel, the observatory's public information coordinator.

Dr Pepper · 09-10-2009 12:48pm

lostexpectation wrote: »

1230 GMT (8:30 a.m. EDT)
Astronomers at Palomar Observatory outside of San Diego report they saw no evidence of an impact plume through the 200-inch Hale Telescope. Outfitted with adaptive optics, the telescope has a resolution of about 180 meters per pixel, according to Scott Kardel, the observatory's public information coordinator.

Doh! There must have been thousands of disappointed amateurs in their back yards!

goose2002 · 09-10-2009 1:02pm

Beeker wrote: »

It was true before that Hubble could not view the moon because of the brightness, but new instruments on board now allow it to do so. Image below was taken by Hubble a while ago of the Taurus-Littrow Valley, the landing site of Apollo 17 in december 1972. Image below it is from Apollo 17 {Not Hubble}

Cool, I didn't know the upgrades allowed it to do that. Sounds excellent. Apologies for doubting you Dr Pepper. Looking forward to what may be seen in these photos then.

Scruff · 09-10-2009 1:23pm

maybe there was no plume because instead of hitting ice it landed in a bog

smokingman · 09-10-2009 1:29pm

Scruff wrote: »

maybe there was no plume because instead of hitting ice it landed in a bog

.....or an underground cavern where the Cheesemen civilization lives! :eek:

derek27 · 09-10-2009 2:16pm

goose2002 wrote: »

As far as I know, Hubble cannot be used to observe the moon. Its image sensors are extremely sensitive, so much so that they would be damaged by the brightness of the moon from sunlight. They have to take the moon and the sun into consideration when directing it.

Spot on!

lostexpectation · 09-10-2009 2:17pm

press conference on going http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html

Scruff · 09-10-2009 2:39pm

whole lot of nothing so far except for a spectrometer graph showing some small change and a lot of talk of what a great mission it was.
No money shot though..

lostexpectation · 09-10-2009 4:48pm

talking alot about its exosphere, and the a type of sodium was found, but they knew that already

Turtwig · 09-10-2009 5:01pm

Newscientist has reported that they're a little puzzled..

linky

Newscientist wrote:

A worst-case scenario would have occurred if the rocket impacted bedrock rather than loose, gravelly soil. In that case, the debris plume might not have reached the minimum 1.5-kilometre altitude needed to catch the sunlight and be seen by LCROSS.

Because of the angle of the crater, the plume would have needed to rise to 2.5 to 3 km in order to be seen by telescopes on Earth. A 10-km-high plume was expected.

The impact was monitored by the Hubble Space Telescope, which has not yet delivered its data. Several major observatories were also watching for signs of impact, including the Keck and Canada-France-Hawaii telescopes on Mauna Kea, neither of which saw a plume. One positive report came from Kitt Peak Observatory in Arizona, where a flash of visible light revealing the presence of sodium was recorded during the impact.

"I think we're all a little bit disappointed that we didn't see anything," David Morrison, director of NASA's Lunar Science Institute, told New Scientist.

lostexpectation · 09-10-2009 6:54pm

NASA Moon-Bomber Left Hanging On High Five

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zP64qqd88UI

lol

via wonkette

lostexpectation · 09-10-2009 6:57pm

A worst-case scenario would have occurred if the rocket impacted bedrock rather than loose, gravelly soil

so what does that tell us, about the crator...

ynotdu · 09-10-2009 11:39pm

They changed their first choice crator in the last week,bet they are sorry now:o.I would guess they impacted on rock instead of soil.whatever with 9 sensor instruments as well as the stelescopes,Some new data will no doubt be uncovered after analysis.

jumpguy · 09-10-2009 11:48pm

Surely though a 2,200 kg rocket stage slamming into the moon at twice the speed of a bullet would stir up enough particles for the spectrometer coming in after and the spectrometry of the orbiting probe? Probably not as much as hoped but surely an adequate amount.

ynotdu · 10-10-2009 12:01am

jumpguy wrote: »

Surely though a 2,200 kg rocket stage slamming into the moon at twice the speed of a bullet would stir up enough particles for the spectrometer coming in after and the spectrometry of the orbiting probe? Probably not as much as hoped but surely an adequate amount.

You would think so would'nt you?:)
They are scratching their heads at the moment for sure!
the unmanned missions often take a long time for them to get their heads around,usually by the time they think they know for sure what had happened nobody gives a sh1t!:)

still it was worth the effort!

jumpguy · 10-10-2009 12:05am

ynotdu wrote: »

You would think so would'nt you?:)
They are scratching their heads at the moment for sure!
the unmanned missions often take a long time for them to get their heads around,usually by the time they think they know for sure what had happened nobody gives a sh1t!:)

still it was worth the effort!

God, I don't know about it being worth it if the results are non-existant/poor/negligable. NASA are in a poor position here on Earth and another failed high-profile mission on their belts are not needed.
Why are the results so slow anyway? I know they take months to analyse before any announcements, but surely from telemetry they'd know if they actually GOT results...

Turtwig · 10-10-2009 12:12am

jumpguy wrote: »

God, I don't know about it being worth it if the results are non-existant/poor/negligable. NASA are in a poor position here on Earth and another failed high-profile mission on their belts are not needed.
Why are the results so slow anyway? I know they take months to analyse before any announcements, but surely from telemetry they'd know if they actually GOT results...

AFAIK, they got a good chunk of spectrometer readings (obviously not as much as expected, ironically though I was expecting very little:o) and they should have some sort of indication in two weeks time.... can anyone confirm this??

jumpguy · 10-10-2009 12:14am

Ahh, how's it I didn't spot this.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8299118.stm

Nasa scientists have been outlining their preliminary results after crashing two unmanned spacecraft into the Moon in a bid to detect water-ice.

A rocket stage slammed into the Moon's south pole at 1231 BST (0731 EDT).

Another craft followed just behind, looking for signs of water in debris kicked up by the first collision.

Instruments on the second spacecraft identified a flash from the initial impact as well as a crater, but the expected debris cloud was not evident.

The $79m (£49m; 53m euro) US space agency mission is known as LCROSS (the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite).

The first collision was expected to throw some 350 tonnes of debris up to altitudes of 10km (6.2 miles) or more.

No such dust plume was apparent in images sent back by the spacecraft however, proving a disappointment to some members of the public expecting a space spectacular.

"We need to go back and carefully look at the data to see what it says," Dr Anthony Colaprete, principal investigator on the LCROSS mission told journalists at a post-impact news conference.

"Exploration has surprises. I'm glad we built our mission plan around all aspects of the impact… what's streamed on the video is not at the same fidelity as what we get fresh off the spacecraft. We need to look more closely before we conclude anything about an ejecta cloud, or not."

Wait for water

Dr Colaprete, from Nasa's Ames Research Center in California, added: "I see something in the spectrometer data - the spectrometers are more sensitive than the cameras. But I can't say anything more than that."

The team was also able to determine the temperature of the crater punched in the lunar surface.

Thus, questions about the persistence of water-ice on the Moon will have to wait.

But Dr Colaprete said: "We saw the impact, we saw the crater. We got good spectroscopic measurements which is what we needed of the impact event."

"We have the data we need to address the questions we set out to address."

The identification of water-ice in the impact plume would be a major discovery, not least because a supply of water on the Moon would be a vital resource for future human exploration.

LCROSS was to have helped pave the way for US astronauts to return to the Moon by 2020.

But these plans have been under scrutiny since President Barack Obama ordered a sweeping review of Nasa's manned spaceflight programme.

There's also a very good animation of how the LCROSS mission worked (or was expected to work, in the case of the plume anyway).

ynotdu · 10-10-2009 12:24am

well in the meantime It was nice to see the Apollo's lower stage Lunar modules and the unmanned craft photo's taken from Lcross.in the year 2009!Conspiricy theorists PLEASE note:MAN DID WALK ON MOON!:cool:

So far the only failure has been that NASA did not get the immediate results they expected,even that will eventually be of some use:)
good time to remember that if it was'nt for Armstrong taking manual control of Eagle it was gonna crash into rocks!!!!!!
Obama, congess PLEASE NOTE:Spaceflight needs to be manned!:pac::pac::pac:

Turtwig · 10-10-2009 12:33am

ynotdu wrote: »

well in the meantime It was nice to see the Apollo's lower stage Lunar modules and the unmanned craft photo's taken from Lcross.in the year 2009!Conspiricy theorists PLEASE note:MAN DID WALK ON MOON!:cool:

So far the only failure has been that NASA did not get the immediate results they expected,even that will eventually be of some use:)
good time to remember that if it was'nt for Armstrong taking manual control of Eagle it was gonna crash into rocks!!!!!!
Obama, congess PLEASE NOTE:Spaceflight needs to be manned!:pac::pac::pac:

I can maybe see a manned spaceflight to orbit mars, and set up orbit there to control probes, but I really think manned mission to Mars is far too expensive. Spirt and Opportunity have done very well for us so far:)

Anyways, In case you haven't seen this:
'Preparing for Armageddon as the conspiracy theorists would say :rolleyes:'

Nothing definitive yet but the omens are good:)

ynotdu · 10-10-2009 12:41am

Malty_T wrote: »

I can maybe see a manned spaceflight to orbit mars, and set up orbit there to control probes, but I really think manned mission to Mars is far too expensive. Spirt and Opportunity have done very well for us so far:)

Anyways, In case you haven't seen this:
'Preparing for Armageddon as the conspiracy theorists would say :rolleyes:'

Nothing definitive yet but the omens are good:)

I will watch it malty(i always do read a link or watch a vid before comment)

But YES Spirit&Opportunity are 2 little sweethearts,love those little guys,they are like kids remote control cars and still beavering on in mars after ? years now:).They were only given 3 month life expectancy but Ssssssshhhhh no-one told them:D
So ok you got me until future technology Manned spaceflight at least around Earth&Moon is needed!!!!!!

Did read it!The idea of an Asteroid would sure fire the imagination!....Long way before they can seriously consider Mars though in my humble opinion.

SkepticOne · 10-10-2009 10:47am

I think the plume was directed away from the Earth due to the fact of the spacecraft hitting the sloping side of the crater.

NASA has announced the time&TV coverage of Lcross impact

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