LCROSS Lunar Impact Options

[nprev]

T minus 9 hrs. 10 min till impact. NASA TV coverage begins @ 1015 GMT (0315 PDT). Link to coverage here.

[Astro0]

Separation image (inset) and interpretation (using Celestia add-on).

[Hungry4info]

You've had much better luck with simulating it in Celestia with that add-on than I. In Celestia, I had the moon behind the Centaur as seen from LCROSS, and there doesn't seem to be the moon in the live feed.

[Shaka]

O.K. Bend over please.
This may sting a little.

[nprev]

(Ouch!!!!!!)

Astro0, what's the FOV of that Celestia view? Reason I ask is that the Moon wasn't visible in the post-separation raw images as far as I could see; just curious. (Great composition, BTW, as per your usual!)

(EDIT: I see that Hungry already mentioned that.)

[Stu]

Humph.

Stupid Moon.

Have to go to work, so I'll miss the whole thing.

(scuffs toes on ground)

Not fair.




Have fun everyone! Looking forward to hearing all about it when I get back.

[Astro0]

nprev... I've got no idea of the FOV for that image...I just thought it looked nice and helped orient me to the 'real' image...not even sure if it's right! Remember me I'm the 'artist' not the scientist

[Hungry4info]

...Reason I ask is that the Moon wasn't visible in the post-separation raw images as far as I could see; just curious.

Is this the terminator of the moon in the lower-left corner of the IR image? If so, it may suggest either a very narrow FOV, or simply that the moon is quite off-centre from the image.

http://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/lcross-c...separation2.jpg

[ustrax]

Here's the moon as I see it now, ignorant mode here, where's the impact site in this photo?

[Hungry4info]

Haha, it's the very southern point in that image. I don't suspect your image is detailed enough to resolve Cabeus crater.

[ElkGroveDan]

Here's the moon as I see it now, ignorant mode here, where's the impact site in this photo?

It's at the left tip of the lighted side in that image Rui/

[ustrax]

Thanks guys!

[Decepticon]

Tee Hee

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[Decepticon]

Every time I see the impact story on the news, the media tends to over play the impact.

[Guest_Zvezdichko_*]

I can already see that. Bombing the Moon, that's it. Fortunately or not, we're living in a sci-fi shaped world. And there are people who are afraid of the impact. But there's no danger. Impacts occur very often.

[MahFL]

Good morning all.

[Guest_Zvezdichko_*]

Broadcast starts in a minute:

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html

[MahFL]

Can't watch video at work . I'll make do with JSC stills.

[Guest_Zvezdichko_*]

I usually take snapshots, but I'm also at work and don't have the graphics programs. I'll try however to do the best I can from here.

[Phil Stooke]

Recent Twitter post:

SSC_Final_ME_sph = 310.52235358536 E -84.7311739853509
about 1 hour ago from web
LCROSS Centaur and SSC target coordinates (Lat., Lon. in ME): Centaur_Final_ME_sph = 311.302088477883 E -84.6743872273512
about 1 hour ago from web

I see they are targeting an individual molecule...

Phil

[volcanopele]

If that's a water molecule is that such a bad thing?

[Hungry4info]

The target molecule will probably be destroyed. Perhaps they're hoping to detect the water molecules adjacent to that one?

[Guest_Zvezdichko_*]

Moon!

Don't know if it was the Moon imaged by the previous flyby or a live downlink. Too noisy here.

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[Guest_Zvezdichko_*]

All instruments are operating nominally, that's great news, great chance of getting data!

[AndyG]

Live - and getting bigger!

[centsworth_II]

Don't know if it was the Moon imaged by the previous flyby or a live downlink. Too noisy here.

Sounded live to me. the scientist being interviewed was quite emotional when asked his feeling at the time it was shown. He said he was feeling [many] emotions at the same time.

[deefatman]

I didn't realise Hubble was going to be observing things!

[Guest_Zvezdichko_*]

Yes, this is the Moon seen by LCROSS in real time!

Yet another screenshot coming. Unfortunately I won't be able to combine them all - no graphics programs here.

[volcanopele]

Which crater is Cabeus in that screenshot?

[Guest_Zvezdichko_*]

[centsworth_II]

Which crater is Cabeus in that screenshot?

Asked if they can pick out the target, the scientists said it's still too far away for them to pick it out.

[deefatman]

It really reminds you how big the moon is when you consider how long left there is and that the moon is already filling up the entire frame, we always consider the moon small next to earth but in it's own right it's still enormous.

[elakdawalla]

Can anybody spot Cabeus in the LCROSS view? Having trouble getting oriented this morning, even with coffee

[Guest_Zvezdichko_*]

Live view from the IR camera!

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[ElkGroveDan]

YAWN .... I am tired! Going to watch on the large screen TV. I'll check back here in a while.

[volcanopele]

Okay, nevermind, here is what I could put together:

[volcanopele]

In the current view on screen now, Cabeus is just below and to the left of center

[nprev]

'Mornin' everyone. Just got the NASA feed working on my computer; @#$% cable company here STILL don't carry NASA TV.

(The marine layer has torpedoed plans to set up my scope!)

[MahFL]

try this link !

http://www.mmto.org/lcross/

[Juramike]

(Are we supposed to eat peanuts now?)

[Guest_Zvezdichko_*]

Visible...



And IR image...

[volcanopele]

'Mornin' everyone. Just got the NASA feed working on my computer; @#$% cable company here STILL don't carry NASA TV.

(The marine layer has torpedoed plans to set up my scope!)

Be careful. Even if NASA TV doesn't show up on your digital cable box lineup, NASA TV may still be available over clearQAM by plugging the coax directly into your TV. That's the case here in Tucson with Cox Cable. In Tucson, it's on channel 72-4.

[mchan]

Bit humorous there when they went thru the station checks and concluded with "go for impact". It's not like they can scrub...

[deglr6328]

(Are we supposed to eat peanuts now?)


NO! Eating peanuts during a crash (even when deliberate) confuses the flying spaghetti monster and then he won't be able to be relied upon to guide our future soft landing missions down safely with his noodly appendage.

[Juramike]

The image is growing visibly frame by frame. This is so cool....

[volcanopele]

Thanks for the link, MahFL! Slooh was rained and clouded out at both locations.

Cloudy here...

[Guest_Zvezdichko_*]

Latest snapshot

[AndyG]

And poor Stu is missing it!

[volcanopele]

Impact flash! Woot!

EDIT: err. maybe not... that's just a surface feature...

[deglr6328]

ehhhhhh, did I miss it? I didn't see a thing on the video.

[Guest_Zvezdichko_*]

This is probably the thermal confirmation, I think

[deefatman]

I didn't see anything either

[nprev]

I didn't see anything...
but the R/T lithobraking was cool!

Dim flash suggests soil impact rather than rocks...good news!

[Hungry4info]

I never saw an impact flash (at least one that I recognized as such).
Is what we saw the best quality LCROSS images?

[MahFL]

I saw NOTHING !!!!, thats my story and I am sticking to it.

[nprev]

NASA TV showing the IR now. There's a hotspot, all right.

[ElkGroveDan]

I'm going back to bed. You kids woke me up for this?

[Guest_Zvezdichko_*]

Is this the hot spot anyway?

[deglr6328]

I think that's just a sunlit crater rim nprev. Zvez, that mid-IR image is just mostly noise from excessively high gain after the last sunlit hotspots went out of frame.

[centsworth_II]

Is this the hot spot anyway?

Looks like the hot, sunlit peak of a crater rim.

[tanjent]

One of the commentators identified that hotspot as sunshine hitting the crater rim. I thought it looked like an impact site myself - perhaps there is some confusion about that.

[ToSeek]

Every time I see the impact story on the news, the media tends to over play the impact.

Yeah, the CNN caption was "NASA Attacks the Moon."

[Elias]

One of the commentators identified that hotspot as sunshine hitting the crater rim. I thought it looked like an impact site myself - perhaps there is some confusion about that.

That hotspot was visible before the impact - I think its just the crater rim

[NGC3314]

Some of us were doing an image sequence with a 0.9m telescope in Arizona, with the moon nearly at zenith. Nothing obvious in Cabaeus as we watched the data come in. I'm turning around now to try aligning and differencing the image to see whether we can tease out a more subtle plume signature.

Edit 40 minutes later - difference imaging shows no plume detection within limits from telescope shake and seeing (which can be improved but not in real time). That makes sense if the SSC only saw a subtle signature.

[stewjack]

10 a.m. - LCROSS Post-Impact News Conference - AMES (Public and Media Channels)

10 AM Eastern Time
7 AM Pacific
14:00 GMT/UTC I think

Jack

[Doc]

I too failed to see anything. You should have heard my brother, 'Well, where is it?'

[deglr6328]

oh well, that was anticlimactic. As it's going to be hours at least before other images are released and with the news channels in full mediagasm mode over the prez' Nobel, I really don't expect any data until next week. g'nite!

[nprev]

I'm already dreading the headlines: "NASA Moon Bomb A Dud", etc. ad nauseum. Sure hope the science was a success; have to find out after work. G'night/G'morning everyone.

[Guest_Zvezdichko_*]

I'm very sorry you felt disappointed. I can understand why - no bright flash. But the real treasure could be coming to us.

[Hungry4info]

But the real treasure could be coming to us.

That's my stance too. We haven't seen or heard from LRO or HST.

[mchan]

from discussion on nasaspaceflight forum --

http://www.gargaro.com/MaRvInWaVs/boom.wav

[Hungry4info]

I recall hearing that science return aside, they would be quickly able to determine if the mission was a success or not. While I have very little doubt that LCROSS will return data, has there been any word from the LCROSS team itself?

[Astro0]

From LCROSS shortly after Centaur impact...


Last frame from LCROSS video before it cutout...


....I think that the whole sequence was fantastic.
Watching the Moon's surface rush towards us reminded me of the old footage of Ranger heading for impact.
The anticipation/tension of the whole thing was great.
Was anyone else leaning closer to their screen hoping to see something?...ANYTHING!

There's going to be more data here than we can see right now.
Let's wait for the press conference being held in about 90 minutes.

In a way, I'm glad there was no 'flash'....that might convince some media/public that it wasn't a bomb!

[Hungry4info]

Oh definitely, absence of the Centaur impact aside, I definitely enjoyed it. I, too, leaned closer =)

[nprev]

!, mchan!

Oh, I'm not disappointed personally, and of course the real gold will be in the properly acquired & calibrated data. In all likelihood the popular media's gonna be a bit snarky, though, and that's always not the best for NASA.

I was thinking that this would be a good trick to try on one of Mercury's poles someday, with the caveat that the chase spacecraft would have to do a grazing flyby--not an impact-- & survive at least long enough to play back the observations.

[MahFL]

I would say it's a safe bet if water is found in a shadowed crater, it's a common thing that could be found in ALL solar systems.

[Astro0]

For anyone interested, there is an archived version of NASA TV's coverage here.

It's 109mb, I'm downloading it now and will try to put together an edited version of the last few minutes before and after Centaur and LCROSS impact.

[Hungry4info]

NASA news conference at 10 AM EDT
They've got some 'splaining to do.

[MahFL]

Maybe they impacted a lunar bog ?

[Hungry4info]

Quote David Morrison, Director of NASA's Lunar Science Institute"I think we're all a little bit disappointed that we didn't see anything, but 90% of the data has not yet been seen."
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1795...-into-moon.html

[climber]

May be it was a splash, not a kaboum: this has to be liquid water

[Phil Stooke]

http://www.mmto.org/lcross/

Go here for streamimg video from MMT possibly showing the impact plume. But Palomar reportedly saw nothing.

Phil

[Hungry4info]

Nothing from Lick
http://www.universetoday.com/2009/10/09/lc...e-data-pending/

[elakdawalla]

...Go here for streamimg video from MMT...

I saw something on Twitter indicating MMT was out of focus so no useful data was gathered? ...but that's Twitter and could possibly be wrong

[MahFL]

I was watching MMT and the closeup did seem a bit blurry. The other view seemed ok.

[AndyG]

Nothing from Lick
http://www.universetoday.com/2009/10/09/lc...e-data-pending/

I just stacked a few of their frames and can see a bit fat nothing. Which is good, right?

Andy

[Littlebit]

Maybe they missed the target;)

[Juramike]

Somewhere way back, someone had posted an animated GIF showing a lunar impact as seen through a telescope. There was a tiny flash (you could almost imagine it going "piff").

I'd assumed that vaporizing a football field worth of lunar regolith would've made a bigger flash and a sunlit dust plume.

Guess not....

[ilbasso]

I was somewhat bemused by the confusion over the commanding being given to the Flight Director in the final 60 seconds before Centaur impact, to change a setting on the NIR instrument. "Was that November IR?" How much time was lost in that communication? Hopefully it didn't affect the collection of data. Just shows the unintended consequences of having two instruments with similar sounding acronyms, NIR and MIR.

[Astro0]

Going back over the video, there was something in the infrared images that caught my eye.
I've taken 4 frames and put them in an animated gif.


You can see, almost in the middle here a small dot appear. Bright at the centre and a darker blue around it.
It may just be "noise", but it happens and in the audio on the TV coverage just a moment later they announce Centaur impact.

Not claiming anything here, just pointing it out. I suppose we'll know any minute now as the Press Conference is about to start.

[AndyG]

Mmmm ... I've seen spacecraft disappear into craters before.

[elakdawalla]

Oh how I wish Ames was as on the ball as JPL is with media graphics. Any sign of these cool slides anywhere on the Web?

[Astro0]

There was a 'flash'

Here's the mission's image showing the 'flash' and I think it matches nicely to the spot I noticed in the animation.

[clad]

I´ve a comment about the poor media coverage of this important event, i think this a important mission, can you imagine if we found water in the moon? all the things we can possible found with this discover? , NASA needs more advertise around the world to obtain more benefits, more support from all of us. The information in our present era is like gold, everybody needs to have it....

I would to say thanks to the people in this web page to keep us informed and post pics from the most important part of the mission, and of course a WELL DONE to NASA for this flawless mission.

[dilo]

Rough animation from the frames of last 2 minutes of transmission (starting about 2.5min after Centur impact). The very last frames aren't included...

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[Juramike]

Interesting comment regarding the integrated spectral data after the initial peak (Centaur impact).
"The observation that the line didn't return to zero is interesting." (paraphrased)

Did we make a smoldering crater?

[centsworth_II]

....I'd assumed that vaporizing a football field worth of lunar regolith would've made a bigger flash and a sunlit dust plume....

Are you referring to the LCROSS crater? That was predicted to be 60 meters in diameter. It would take about 15 of those to cover a football field.

To everyone: I hope the press conference has dispelled the uncharacteristic negative attitudes I see expressed in many of the post impact comments.

[Doc]

Indeed there was a flash. Hardly more than a few pixels. But its there and the UV radiance data being presented proves it. The size is as expected...

[MahFL]

Yes but the whole episode was over-hyped. Todays public expects to see what they expect to see !
A pixel or 2 on a camera ain't going to do it. As a co-worker said "is that all we get for 79 million ?"

[centsworth_II]

A pixel or 2 on a camera ain't going to do it. As a co-worker said "is that all we get for 79 million ?"

I'll paraphrase from the press conference:

'THE SPECTRA IS WHERE THE SCIENCE IS AT.'

We pay for the science, not the spectacle.