-
- MOUNTAIN VIEW, California (Reuters) -- The NASA space probe that
last year detected probable evidence of ice on the moon will soon go on
one last mission to verify its findings -- crashing into the lunar surface
in an effort to send up a detectable plume of water vapor.
-
- "While the probability of success
for such a bold undertaking is low, the potential science payoff is tremendous,"
Guenter Riegler, a NASA official, said in a news release Wednesday. The
Lunar Prospector probe went into lunar orbit in January 1998 as the first
U.S. moon mission since the Apollo 17 astronauts walked on the lunar surface
in 1972.
-
- The small probe employed a neutron spectrometer
to scan the lunar surface, and sent back signs of hydrogen from the moon's
polar regions. Scientists said this could indicate the presence of as much
as six billion metric tons of water ice.
-
- Now, the Lunar Prospector team at NASA's
Ames Research Center is preparing to send the 354-pound, $63 million probe
crashing into a polar crater on July 31 -- an impact equivalent to smashing
a heavy car into a wall at a speed of more than 1,100 miles per hour.
-
- Scientists hope that the controlled crash
will "liberate" up to 40 pounds of water vapor that could be
detectable from ground- and space-based observatories, a finding which
would confirm the presence of water ice on the moon.
-
- "Since the implementation costs
are minimal and the mission is scheduled to end anyway, it seems fitting
to give Lunar Prospector the chance to provide scientific data right up
to the end of its highly successful mission," Riegler said.
-
- Scientists said that while they were
excited by the prospect of sending the probe crashing into the crater at
the moon's southern pole, failure to detect any water vapor as a result
of the experiment should not be taken as proof that water ice is not present.
-
- David Goldstein of the University of
Texas at Austin, one of the scientists who proposed the crash study, said
that overall probability of success was only about 10 percent, pointing
out that the spacecraft may not make impact in the desired region or may
not crash with enough force to send water traces high enough to be observed.
|
