Moon crash produces much data, little drama

According to CNN there was confirmation of a plume by astronomers.

But immediate NASA images of the crash produced no sign of the plumes, which were expected to rise six kilometers from the moon's surface, said John Marmie, LCROSS deputy project manager.

"Everyone was like, 'What's happening here?' " Marmie said. "But that doesn't mean we don't have good data there."

Observatories on Earth did confirm they saw plumes after the crashes, Marmie said.

NASA's strike on moon worked, mission official says

I think it wasn't seen because the collision was in the shadow of the crater.

Either that or the aliens stopped it from colliding.

[edit on 10/9/2009 by Hal9000]

Originally posted by whatukno
reply to post by fieryjaguarpaw

 

Failure is always an option. That's science for you. If they discover something great, if they fail, they learn through that failure.

So now you agree with me?

I'm not even sure what you are trying to say. You act like I'm anti-science or something.

Mannn! I was all excited to wake up today and see the footage of the crash and the moon's plume. All I found on nasa is an animated footage, then I go to cnn and its that 2fps video and half of it is in infrared? WTF!
My friend texts me saying couldn't see the plume with his expensive 3ft telescope.

Why wouldn't there have been an HD camera on the spacecraft and why didnt we have a satellite focused on the moon that could see it?
I mean F!#$ even hubble could have taken a peak. What a gip something definitly went wrong or not as they expected. But what I should have expected is full disclosure from NASA

[edit on 9-10-2009 by tooo many pills]

Ok. Physics says that a 2 ton projectile traveling twice the speed of a "bullet" impacting in regolith (or dirt) in a low gravity environment like the moon will produce a "plume" 6 miles or 6 kilometers high (depending on the source). The crater is not 6 miles deep.. much less 6 kilometers, and no plume was seen. Therefore the question becomes, if it didn't hit regolith, what did it hit??

Could it have been possible that it went straight into the moon? Like a bullet going through your chest, not much blood pluming out of your front side, but if it goes completely through you, theres a plume coming out the other side?

I am not saying it went completely through the moon but maybe into the interior?

All I can say is that it turned out exactly the way I predicted it. I said it would be nice all week and then turn real cloudy by Friday and lo and behold, it is completely over cast and staying up to watch the impact would've been futile.

I remember arguing about this when they first launched it, trying to tell everyone that the Moon isn't going explode and we're not going to knock it out of the orbit and NASA really is searching for something useful, on and on. People, you can't get crazy over something just because you don't understand it.

reply to post by tooo many pills

Relax dude. Take a pill... or not.

Coming from an amateur astronomer here, I know that would be extremely difficult to see even with a good telescope. Not trying to be disrespectful but, everything is not like in the movies where you see the perfect shot. The location is a part of the Moon that is in constant shadow and the only way it would be visible is when the plume reached sunlight.

[edit on 10/9/2009 by Hal9000]

Anyone telling their friends with 6in telescopes to watch was setting them up for disappointment. 10-12 was the recommended minimum. In any case I do appluad your effort to encourage people to be involved in science.

No plume means the results were not what they expected. The regolith in the crater doesn't match the regolith expected based on various other impacts and landings. This isn't bad news. This is great news. It means there is more to learn about! I am also seeing stories that are conflicting the no plume though.
Observatories on Earth did confirm they saw plumes after the crashes, Marmie said.

Maybe teh moonz haz a pole-hole like de earths do and it went inside teh hollow moonz!!!1! /tin-hatted lolcat

reply to post by Hal9000


That's not necessarily true, with the plume not being visible in the shadows.

The crater in question, "Cabeus A" had it's rim partially exposed to the sun. You can see it in the thermal image. Now, if there was any dust plume, I would expect it to at least come even with the rim of the crater, thus being visible by the sunlight glancing off the rim.

The shadows can't just "eat the light", the light passes directly over the shadow, at Cabeus A especially. This is why they chose it, because ice would be probable in the dark, cold areas, but they needed "some" light to see it.

Maybe the rocket was way off target? Who knows.

reply to post by Hal9000


Don't worry I am chill, just baffled that a shadow can cover a plume that was suppose to a few miles high from the moons surface.

Indeed, the plume was essential to the mission and the NASA team were disappointed they could not see one. But they did finish the mission and delivered the craft to its destination.

They mentioned the crater seemed to have a glow after impact, but they weren't certain whether it was in the crater or in the atmosphere.

Truth is, despite what the NASA PR department said, they were never entirely sure what kind of impact there would be. Sunlight has never reached the inside of the crater so they only had a vague idea of what kind of surface they were dealing with. They said they would need to review their data to see what they have found.

All those who made the tin foil/hollow moon/alien comments, please grow up. This site is about entertaining alternative paradigms not belittling them.

there was not supposed to be any flash guys, they were simply testing a new weapon (thats not really new, the idea has been around for ages, but to actually implement it, thats the new part) that is known as "Rods From God"

these weapons use kinetic force to penetrate deep within the object it is fired upon, and THEN detonate (im sure nuclear implementation is unavoidable)

but im not the one who stated this first, im just passing it along, Ill try to find the original posters thread.

Ok theres the orignial thread LINK

God Be With You All.

Originally posted by AwakeAndAware
Therefore the question becomes, if it didn't hit regolith, what did it hit??

Bedrock. They targeted the side of the crater rim. In my opinion it wouldn't be terribly unlikely for them to discover that there's only a thin layer of regolith covering hard bedrock formed and pushed up by the initial impact that created the crater.

Originally posted by tooo many pills
My friend texts me saying couldn't see the plume with his expensive 3ft telescope.

I didn't see any plume either, but I swear I saw a brief dim flash at the moment of impact. Very few others saw anything at all though, even though many of their telescopes were quite a bit larger than mine, so I'm not sure what to think.

Why wouldn't there have been an HD camera on the spacecraft and why didnt we have a satellite focused on the moon that could see it?
I mean F!#$ even hubble could have taken a peak.

Well this was a very cheap mission and as such they were having problems with bandwidth even as it was and had to make some last second changes. The HD camera's the easy part, downloading HD footage to earth thousands of miles away in realtime with only about two minutes before your probe and its footage are destroyed? That's the hard part. They simply didn't have the bandwidth for live HD. As for Hubble, Hubble DID take pictures during the event. We have yet to see if it captured anything our ground scopes missed, but I personally doubt it.

reply to post by barrelmaker


Why don't you like people with 6 inch telescopes? Huh? We are people too.

You just can't strap a Canon or a Kodak to a rocket and send it to the moon to take pictures. They have to be hardened against vaccum and radiation as well as be stout enough to survive the trip up. Some people just don't understand that this IS rocket science lol. There is a lot that goes into it. As stated bandwidth is a major concern. Imagine gathering 10 carts of food at the grocery store and then realizing you drive a Geo Metro. Just because you can gather the data doesn't mean you can transmit it.

The lack of plume simply means the surface of the crater is different than what they expected. This is intersting in and of itself. If not the standard regolith, then what? Is it possible it impacted on an unseen hill and the plume may have shot out to the side? No one knows right now, but perhaps the final analysis will give us a clue. not all the data is in yet, so calling this mission a failue is inaccurate. It made it into orbit of the moon, it successfully release both impactors and received data. Also the LRO could be considered part of this mission as well and is an overwhelming success. Just because a scientist didnt get the results he expected doesn't mean he didn't get any at all. Half of science is figuring out why things happen the way they do. This presents an excellent opportunity for NASA to learn more about the moon, even without the dust plume.

reply to post by tehzomgconspiracy


I have nothing against people with smaller telescopes. In fact I envy you greatly, I have only an old set of binoculars for my star gazing.
My comment was directed at the individual who was telling his friends with telescopes too small to see the expected event to watch for it. Sadly I wouldn't have been to watch even if I had the proper equipment. It was raining last night and as i live in the city, the light pollution has made it difficult to make out even basic constellations sometimes.

Click here for more information.

No more than you would if you visited Earth and stuck a flag in the middle of the Mojave Desert. What am i missing here? Lets THINK.

Originally posted by ^anubis^
reply to post by ROBL240

 

wouldnt they had discovered this when they stuck the American Flag into the ground?

[edit on 9-10-2009 by ^anubis^]

reply to post by fieryjaguarpaw


Well I am not trying to argue with you that's for sure.

I suspect that the plume went off just as expected, now seeing as there is no sunlight on the dark side of the moon. I would venture to guess that it wasn't as spectacular a plume as people would suspect.

Or it could be like throwing a ball into a snowbank. The ball just goes "foop" and no real plume exits.

"foop" by the way is a technical term for high velocity impact report.