This Friday morning should be a historic day for space exploration. At 7:31 AM EST on Friday October 9, 2009, NASA will be crashing-into-the-moon-for-science.
As our kids are heading off to school, the LCROSS mission will be underway. The mission will first crash a rocket into the moon’s southern pole while the craft with all the sensors and recording equipment follows behind, analyzing the cloud of material kicked up by the impact, looking for water.
LCROSS spacecraft
Unfortunately, those of us on the east coast will probably not be able to witness this moon bombing first hand(check out the youtube video here), but those amateur astronomers with telescopes over 10 inches and west of Manitoba should be able to see the debris kicked up by the Cenatur rocket impact.
For the rest of us …
Here are a few links to observe the impact:
NASA – Observe the LCROSS impacts
Exploratorium in San Francisco live webcast
… and keep updated on the mission:
Facebook
Twitter
Google Group
So get up early on Friday morning, gather the Geeklets around the computer, or telescope if you are able, and watch as NASA bombs the moon in its ongoing “thirst” (I had to say it once) to find water elsewhere in the solar system.
