Highly Anticipated Bombing of Moon Decidedly Unspectacular
Highly Anticipated Bombing of Moon Decidedly Unspectacular
Posted 10/09/2009 at 6:06pm
| by Ryan Whitwam
15
Comments
Print
NASA just crashed two probes into the moon. Don’t worry though, they totally meant to do it. The two probes were slammed into the lunar surface at over 5000 miles per hour in order to throw up a plume of debris that could be analyzed for signs of water ice. Those non-science types watching online were hoping for a visible plume of dust from the impacts. They were disappointed.
The expected 6-mile plume of debris didn’t materialize, but according to NASA scientists it went just fine on their end. LCROSS principal investigator Tony Colaprete said, “I saw variations in the spectra. I'm thrilled—that's a very good sign. The spectra is where the science is."
The Centaur probe hit the surface first, while being monitored by the LCROSS probe. The LCROSS then took the plunge itself. The area of impact was selected because the craters near the South Pole are never completely illuminated by the sun, meaning ice could be present. Colaprete said in the press conference, “If there's water there, or anything else interesting, we'll find it."
More like this
Wonko33
October 12, 2009 at 8:36am
...Dilute website with stories that are unrelated to computers. This is what made Tom's Hardware RSS such a pile of crap.
r3dd4wg
October 12, 2009 at 6:31am
If the mainstream media had not labeled this experiment a "bombing of the moon", we wouldn't even be discussing this NASA experiment at all.
icebird
October 12, 2009 at 4:58am
"The spectra is where the science is." lol. I can't stop grinning at this sentence. It just strikes me as something on par with "my screen is where teh internets is."
TechJunkie
October 11, 2009 at 3:14pm
This mission was a complete failure. Of coarse NASA is going to say it wasn't to justify the hundreds of millions of dollars of tax payers money it spent. NASA's days are limited under Obama and another failure ensures it's demise. So they be sayin', Yeah of coarse it worked! Just because you didn't see anything we said you would see doesn't mean it didn't work. It worked great! Yeah, It worked great!.....snicker....
K0BALT
October 10, 2009 at 1:32pm
If there's any aliens out there that liked the moon, perhaps an interstellar war is in order....2012, here we come.
mrvander
October 09, 2009 at 8:56pm
I know this holds interest for some, but to revive the concerns from the ComiCon comments... what does this have to do with a Personal Computer and how I can maximize my experience with one?
arkweld
October 10, 2009 at 1:15am
IF you're interested in computers you should read Tom's Hardware, Anandtech, Bit-Tech, Tweaktown ... even ExtremeTech is still more up to date and has more new PC content than MPC.com.
If you're lucky MPC might feaure an article from the magazine but usually the only thing MPC features now is quickly written blog entries based on news that other sites reported three days earlier.
gnslinger
October 11, 2009 at 5:10am
Ironically, Tom's Hardware had a moon bombing article on it's homepage also.
Corfy
October 09, 2009 at 8:02pm
Is anyone else at all concerned about the fact that the United States government instigated a deliberate and unprovoked attack on the moon? Is this a third war that the U.S. will have to be fighting? Did anyone consider economic sanctions before bombing the moon? And are we sending mixed messages by making this attack on a day that our president was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize?
======
Laugh at life or life will laugh at you.
Running Ubuntu Linux 9.04
dethdeks
October 09, 2009 at 9:42pm
wouldnt that mean that nasa is a terrorist? it attacked the moon we should now attack nasa as they are terrorist living in the usa... GET THEM!!!!!!
szore
October 09, 2009 at 7:58pm
I think Ben Bova was the first to predict water ice on the moon in one of his novels, Moonrise or the Kinsman books.
AntiHero
October 09, 2009 at 6:14pm
I was mildly disappointed but still, the moon got taught a lesson from earth.
I don't like Microsoft, I associate with it.
Connect with MaximumPC
Featured Content
We introduce Intel's latest class of tablet killers and review 4 of the first Ultra...
Where have all the memorable videogame enemies gone?
This month's issue
Feature
11 Hardware Hacks
Feature
Overclock Your CPU
How-To
Supercharge Your Smartphone
Build It
A Powerful $830 Rig
Most Commented Articles
Latest Max PC Tweets
- maximumpc: Analysts: 9-Inch Kindle Fire This Summer http://t.co/QDYApwCZ4 hours 18 min ago
- maximumpc: Micron: DRAM Prices Likely as Low as They're Going to Get http://t.co/fFUWuFOm7 hours 16 min ago
- maximumpc: Yar, Mateys! All Of Pirate Bay Made Available As A Single 90MB Zip File http://t.co/j5LHlXEZ8 hours 29 min ago
