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The Planetary Society Blog
Archive
Archived posts are listed in reverse chronological order.
Oct. 9, 2009 | 12:59 PDT | 19:59 UTC
Graphics from the LCROSS press briefing
EDIT OCT 10 2:48 PM: I just realized that the images of the impact flash from the mid-infrared camera were all released mirror-reversed, so I have corrected their orientation below. It's not incorrect for something to be rotated 180 degrees, but... More»
Oct. 9, 2009 | 09:17 PDT | 16:17 UTC
LCROSS: A "morning after" wrapup
So the big drama on LCROSS is over. There's every indication that the mission was successful: the Centaur spacecraft crashed where it was directed to, and the LCROSS shepherd spacecraft captured what appears to be a beautiful mutlivarite data set... More»
Oct. 9, 2009 | 07:57 PDT | 14:57 UTC
LCROSS visible spectrometer data showing impact flash
This plot just shows the aggregate radiance in ultraviolet and visible wavelengths -- all wavelengths -- seen by one of LCROSS' spectrometers after the Centaur hit the Moon. Not much can be read from this graph except for the very, very good news... More»
Oct. 9, 2009 | 07:43 PDT | 14:43 UTC
Palomar image of crater Cabeus after LCROSS impact
Here's the sharpest optical image shown today of the Moon, from Palomar Observatory. You can see a notch in the bright mountain ridge in front of the crater, and a sunny spot on the far wall, which together appeared to look like a plume and its... More»
Oct. 9, 2009 | 07:02 PDT | 14:02 UTC
MMT image of the plume and its shadow?
EDIT: Having seen an image from Palomar during this morning's press briefing, I think that the fuzzy blob that I thought was the plume in this image is just a spot of sunlight on the far crater wall. So I'm retracting my enthusiasm about this... More»
Oct. 9, 2009 | 05:46 PDT | 12:46 UTC
LCROSS impact recap, with animations
Quite a night! I set my alarm for 3:15 am in order to get up and watch LCROSS crash into the Moon. My 5-month-old obligingly woke up at 2:45 to be fed -- which meant that I got half an hour less sleep than I might've, but also meant I could feed... More»
Oct. 9, 2009 | 03:54 PDT | 10:54 UTC
Screen caps of NASA TV LCROSS camera images
I am having issues with TwitPic this morning, so will occasionally post new images from the LCROSS camera to this blog entry. I'll Tweet when I've updated it with a new one. Note that the times of the screen caps are probably at least 5 minutes... More»
Oct. 9, 2009 | 03:16 PDT | 10:16 UTC
Gorgeous Kaguya image of Cabeus crater; where to watch impact
I'm back online and ready to watch LCROSS smash into the Moon this morning! Just in time for the crash, JAXA released a gorgeous Kaguya Terrain Camera image of the crater. But before I show that to you, here's a reminder of where to watch the... More»
Oct. 8, 2009 | 19:55 PDT | Oct. 9 02:55 UTC
LCROSS Centaur separation and braking burn successful
LCROSS and its Centaur upper stage have separated successfully, and the LCROSS shepherd spacecraft has braked in order to follow behind the Centaur when both impact the Moon tomorrow. Everything seemed to go perfectly. Here's a four-frame... More»
Oct. 8, 2009 | 15:33 PDT | 22:33 UTC
LROC nabs image of the Apollo 14 S-IVB impact site
As a reminder that we've been crashing stuff into the Moon for decades, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) team released today a photo of the crater made by the spent upper stage of the Saturn rocket that lofted the Apollo 14 mission to... More»
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