“I guess my summary is really cool. Today we kicked up some moon dusts and all indications are.. it’s going to be a very interesting set of results.”

 

As we, uh, approach very rapidly the surface of the Cabeus crater.

 

It has successfully crashed a satellite and its rocket’s upper stage into the moon intentionally to find signs of water ice under the lunar surface. The impact viewed from the crashing satellite was less than spectacular if compared to a Hollywood version. Even NASA TV analysts weren’t sure what was seen moments after impact.

 

(November..

It’s hard to tell what we saw there… )

 

But NASA achieved what was intended. The Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite machine, known as LCROSS, first saw the satellite separate from its rocket upper-stage Centaur, then commanded it to crash forty minutes later into the Cabeus crater near the moon South Pole at 7:31 eastern time Friday morning.

 

The explosion was witnessed by the satellite. When the rocket hit, it kicked up debris from the crater floor. From this, scientists are analyzing what was seen.

 

“I can certainly report there was an impact. We saw the impact we saw the crater. And we got good measurements, spectroscopic measurements, which was what we needed. I am not gonna say anything about water or no water. But we got the measurements we need to address the questions.”

 

(….as this complements New Mexico State University and NASA’s Marshall Space Wise Center….)

 

NASA has photos and video taken form several observatories. And while the impact is not readily visible, the scientists say they have volumes of data to study.

 

"But now you are more zoomed in. So now you are looking at high resolution. And so you can see the later band and you can see the darker parts looking around Cabeus crater, this is the 60.5 meter guide camera with no filter and this goes throughout the course of the impact. And so we can look at all these different scales and try to put all these pieces together. I am also looking at the data from the Shepherding Spacecraft and also the data from the orbiting assets."

 

The LCROSS team had concluded Cabeus provided the best chance for meeting its mission goals to find water ice under the rocks and see it ejected from the surface during the explosion. Some theories have suggested that lunar pits held vast stores of water. The presence of water on the moon could make future human visits easier. The ice could be used for water and oxygen. Scientists who now spend the next several weeks analyzing the data collected it from LCROSS.