moon craters

[flyingcloud]

http://www.space.com/news/090610-kaguya ... mpact.html

The Japanese lunar orbiter Kaguya has completed its main mission. But there's one final scientific endeavor: It will slam into the moon's surface at about 2:30 p.m. ET (18:30 UT) today.

The impact is expected to occur on the near-side of the moon, in the dark area close to the limb, at lunar coordinates 80°E and 64°S, said European astronomers, who have mapped out the expected impact site using images from the the European Space Agency's SMART-1 lunar orbiter, which was also purposely crashed into the moon in 2006.

SMART-1 images show that the Kaguya satellite's impact site is in an ancient cratered highland.

Among other work, Kaguya beamed back a spectacular movie earlier this year of Earth eclipsing the sun as seen from the moon. It also provided fresh data on the composition of the moon's mysterious far side.

Amateur skywatchers with telescopes and some experience might see the event from Earth. "The timing favors telescopic observers in east Asia, Australia and New Zealand, who may be able to see a brief flash of light or a plume of debris rising from the Moon's southeastern limb," according to Spaceweather.com.

Scientists hope to learn something about lunar composition by observing the debris that's kicked up.

They'll also later compare the pre-impact SMART-1 images to subsequent photographs taken by other spacecraft after the controlled crash landing.

"We hope that future data will showthe elongated craterthat will form due to the Kaguya impact and bouncing secondary debris," said Bernard Foing, ESA's former SMART-1 Project Scientist.

expecting an elongated crater from a probe impact, but accepting circular craters from space rock impacts, why the disconnect?

[moonkoon]

More crater news.

NASA puzzles over 'invisible' moon impact
* Updated 18:45 09 October 2009 by Ivan Semeniuk, Moffett Field, California

In the final minutes of its plunge toward the moon, NASA's LCROSS spacecraft spotted the brief infrared flash of a rocket booster hitting the lunar surface just ahead of it – and it even saw heat from the crater formed by the impact. But scientists remain puzzled about why the event did not seem to generate a visible plume of debris as expected. ...
... Colaprete did not offer definitive word as to why the visual camera apparently did not detect the event but added there were interesting changes in spectroscopic data taken by the spacecraft that might have been produced by a debris cloud. "I'm not convinced that the ejecta is not in the data yet," he said. ...

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1 ... mpact.html