Monday, November 3, 2014

Here’s What it Looks Like When a Refrigerator Hits the Moon

Here’s What it Looks Like When a Refrigerator Hits the Moon:



The impact site of the LADEE spacecraft is clear to see. Actually not really. One must compare to LROC images of the same site photographed before and after the impact to locate it. Click on the image to view the animated gif holding the pair of images. (Photo Credits: NASA/GSFC/LROC)


The impact site of the LADEE spacecraft is clear to see. Actually, not really. One must compare two LROC images of the same site photographed before and after the impact to locate it. Click on the image to view the animated gif holding the pair. Image dimensions: approx. 223 x 125 meters (Photo Credits: NASA/GSFC/LROC)
Ever wonder what your refrigerator’s impacting at the speed of a tank artillery shell would do to the Moon? The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter’s (LRO) primary camera has provided an image of just such an event when it located the impact site of another NASA spacecraft, the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE). The fridge-sized LADEE spacecraft completed its final Lunar orbit on April 18, 2014, and then crashed into the far side of the Moon. LADEE ground controllers were pretty certain where it crashed but no orbiter had found it until now. With billions of craters across the lunar surface, finding a fresh crater is a daunting task, but a new method of searching for fresh craters is what found LADEE.

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© Tim Reyes for Universe Today, 2014. |
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