Tortoise Moon

Coming soon to a moon near you…

Filed under: Uncategorized — admin August 18, 2009 @ 12:35 pm

NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), slated for launch this week, will map the moon’s surface from orbit with unprecedented detail, capable even of imaging the tracks that lunar rovers left behind.

Also heading moonward is the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS), which will slam into the Shackleton Crater on the south pole of the moon in a few months and kick up material that could have been in shadow for 2 billion years. Another probe will slam into the moon a few minutes later at a different location.

It’s all an effort to learn more about what the moon is made of, whether there is water ice in the crater, and therefore where to send U.S. astronauts in a planned return by 2020.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Tortoise Calls

 

The call of the tortoise… 

No Comments

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.