SMART-1 impact, September 2006 |
SMART-1 impact, September 2006 |
Mar 16 2006, 05:26 PM
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Solar System Cartographer Group: Members Posts: 10192 Joined: 5-April 05 From: Canada Member No.: 227 |
Emily posted a very nice article in her blog on the SMART-1 lunar impact in September this year. Here's a map of the targeted point:
But as Emily explained, the actual point may be off because of uncertainties about topography. I'm starting this thread to have a place for news and opinions on it, and - I really hope - maybe some observations at the time from any amateur astronomers out there. This event will be the last event to make it into my atlas. I've left a space for it, and I will make the final maps and fit them in, and then send the stuff off to the publisher. Phil -------------------- ... because the Solar System ain't gonna map itself.
Also to be found posting similar content on https://mastodon.social/@PhilStooke Maps for download (free PD: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/comm...Cartography.pdf NOTE: everything created by me which I post on UMSF is considered to be in the public domain (NOT CC, public domain) |
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Aug 4 2006, 10:59 PM
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Junior Member Group: Members Posts: 59 Joined: 25-December 05 From: Stevens Point, Wisconsin, USA Member No.: 619 |
“Any harm for the Moon?
Nearly 50 years ago, in 1959, the Russian Luna-2 spacecraft was the first man-made object to hit the Moon. Since then many others have done the same, without any noticeable harm, and SMART-1’s impact will be softer than that of any man-made impactor up till now. ... The crater made by SMART-1 will be 3 to 10 metres wide and perhaps a metre deep. The Moon already has 100 000 craters that are more than four kilometres wide, and every day several small meteoroids make craters as big as SMART-1’s. Every chemical element present on SMART-1 and in its equipment exists naturally on the Moon. For instance aluminium and iron are very common. Hydrogen, carbon and nitrogen are much scarcer on the Moon, but they arrive naturally onto the surface from the solar wind and from the impacts of icy fragments of comets, which contain many elements. From this point of view, one can think of SMART-1 as an artificial comet. Furthermore, the little hydrazine left in the SMART-1 thrusters will burn immediately at impact. “ ...Interesting (and a bit silly if not creepy) that ESA took pains to explain that Smart-1’s crash would have a minimal impact on the moon. I suppose they know their audience well and presume them to be extraordinarily green and caring about our fragile little satellite... |
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Aug 4 2006, 11:49 PM
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2454 Joined: 8-July 05 From: NGC 5907 Member No.: 430 |
...Interesting (and a bit silly if not creepy) that ESA took pains to explain that Smart-1’s crash would have a minimal impact on the moon. I suppose they know their audience well and presume them to be extraordinarily green and caring about our fragile little satellite... Certain Native American groups were upset to learn that Lunar Prospector contained the ashes of Gene Shoemaker when it crashed on the Moon in 1998, as they consider our nearest celestial neighbor to be sacred. Muslims also consider the Moon to be important to their faith. -------------------- "After having some business dealings with men, I am occasionally chagrined,
and feel as if I had done some wrong, and it is hard to forget the ugly circumstance. I see that such intercourse long continued would make one thoroughly prosaic, hard, and coarse. But the longest intercourse with Nature, though in her rudest moods, does not thus harden and make coarse. A hard, sensible man whom we liken to a rock is indeed much harder than a rock. From hard, coarse, insensible men with whom I have no sympathy, I go to commune with the rocks, whose hearts are comparatively soft." - Henry David Thoreau, November 15, 1853 |
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