Thursday, October 08, 2009

LCROSS & Centaur Rocket Separation

The LCROSS satellite and Centaur rocket will separate at 8:40 pm CDT. You can watch a live video of the event from this link.

NASA Satellite Will Crash on the Moon!

The LCROSS satellite (Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite) will crash into the moon Friday morning at 6:31 Central Time. The mission is to determine the amount of water ice in the soil at the south pole of the moon. Here's how:

The LCROSS satellite is attached to the second stage rocket that launched it. Both are on a path that will crash them into the moon. The rocket will separate from the satellite and crash, sending rock and soil upward. Any water ice in the soil will vaporize into H ions and OH ions. These will be detected by the satellite before it crashes 4 minutes later.

You can watch the impact on NASA TV on the internet.

Quakes and Tsunamis have plagued Pacific Islands

In the last two months, people living in the South Pacific have suffered strong earthquakes, tsunamis, and the threat of tsunamis. Just yesterday (October 7) a 7.7 magnitude earthquake hit Vanuatu, followed by on of 7.3 magnitude.