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Small BodiesStories, updates, insights, and original analysis from The Planetary Society.
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.
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.
Palomar image of crater Cabeus after LCROSS impact
Here's the sharpest optical image shown today of the Moon, from Palomar Observatory.
MMT image of the plume and its shadow?
I am pretty sure this image shows the LCROSS impact plume and its shadow as seen from the MMT observatory in Arizona, but as Alan Boyle just pointed out, the time stamps indicate the photos were all taken before the nominal impact time.
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.
Graphics from the LCROSS press briefing
It's been a little difficult to get a hold of the graphics that they used at this morning's press briefing.
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Diviner detection of LCROSS impact
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Diviner team just released some preliminary views of their data taken during the LCROSS impact, which clearly shows the thermal signature from the crash into the Moon.
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!
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 the Moon.
A couple of helpful visualizations of LCROSS impact
The visualization studio at Goddard Space Flight Center has just posted some handy simulations of what we can expect the LCROSS impact to look like.
LCROSS impact preview
Way early tomorrow morning, LCROSS and its Centaur upper stage will crash into the lunar south pole.
Apophis is less scary than it used to be
Based on analyses of previously unstudied telescopic data, NASA scientists have released new predictions for the path of the 300-meter-diameter asteroid Apophis.
The "Water on the Moon" Hoopla, Part 1: There's water on the Moon!
For a couple of weeks now, I've been hearing rumors about an upcoming announcement concerning Chandrayaan-1 Moon Mineralogy Mapper (
The "Water on the Moon" Hoopla, Part 2: The murkier part of the story
How much water is there on the Moon, and is it in a form that human explorers could use? This part of the story has many more questions and many fewer definite conclusions.
Interpreting a crater on the Moon
The images from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera or LROC are absolutely stunning.
Exploring Mars on Earth: The Arctic Mars Analog Svalbard Expedition
High in the Arctic, just below Earth's north polar ice cap, biologists, geologists, and engineers come together in Svalbard every August to practice and prepare for an expedition to Mars.
Reports from the 2009 AMASE Field Expedition
Now that it's high summer in the Arctic, it's time for research expeditions to swarm northward to explore icy landscapes as analogues to Mars and other far-off places.
Dunes in the Outback Red Center
Jani talks about the importance of understanding analogs we can easily visit on Earth to processes happening across the solar system.
The Power of Lighting Conditions
For over four decades, the lunar science community has absorbed the information from the Apollo missions. Although many important questions were answered, many important new questions are waiting to be tackled -- which is the very essence of science and exploration.
Science enables exploration, exploration enables science
One primary goal of the LRO mission is to acquire the amazing bounty of scientific data necessary to enable future human lunar exploration and utilization. But why should we even bother going back?