Nasa prepares moon smashing satellite

 Nasa's attempt to smash two probes into the moon's surface could prove the presence of water and hint at a faster, cheaper future for space exploration

As Britain tucks into its lunch on Friday, hundreds of scientists, engineers and astronomers on the other side of the planet will be nervously watching the skies. Across California and Hawaii, hundreds of eyes will be trained on the moon, watching for the moment when a hi-tech orbiter – weighing more than 2 tonnes and travelling at 5,600mph – plunges headlong into the lunar surface. The collision will throw a massive cloud of dust and debris up into space before, just a few minutes later, another, smaller, spacecraft follows suit and plummets to its doom.

For most people, it sounds like the stuff of nightmares. But when the impact takes place, the scientists working on the LCROSS mission will not be weeping but cheering – because this crash is happening on purpose.

Indeed, smashing into the moon's surface is the primary objective of LCROSS (the name stands for Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite). The basic idea behind the project, which launched into space in June, is to try to find out where water might exist in the darkest recesses of the moon's south pole. The best way to do that, apparently, is to throw a spacecraft at it and then examine the debris thrown up by the impact.

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Source: www.guardian.co.uk