Splash! NASA moon crash struck lots of water

With its “bombing” of the moon NASA’s LCROSS mission may beat a telltale signature of water out of a shadowy crater and all you may need to see it is a good backyard telescope.

Some space policy experts say that makes the moon attractive for exploration again. Having an abundance of water would make it easier to set up a base camp for astronauts, supplying drinking water and a key ingredient for rocket fuel.
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The water ice search will begin when the LCROSS satellite releases its spent launch rocket, Centaur, toward the moon. When the rocket hits, it should kick up dusty debris from the crater floor into the light of day.

Experts have long suspected there was water on the moon. So the thrilling discovery announced sent a ripple of hope for a future astronaut.”We found water. And we didn’t find just a little bit. We found a significant amount,” Anthony Colaprete, lead scientist for the mission, told reporters as he held up a white water bucket for emphasis. He said the 25 gallons of water the lunar crash kicked up was only what scientists could see from the plumes of the impact

“Having definitive evidence that there is substantial water is a significant step forward in making the moon an interesting place to go,” said George Washington University space policy scholar John Logsdon.

LCROSS (Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite) and its rocket will begin slamming into the South Pole. The LCROSS collision should reveal how much water ice exists in the permanently shadowed craters of the moon. Some theories suggest the lunar pits hold vast stores of water”

“If you have a telescope trained in the right location, you should be able to see the plume come up and have some brightening over a short amount of time,” said Jennifer Heldmann, the LCROSS observation campaign coordinator at NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California.

“And then you’ll see that, as the plume settles back down onto the lunar surface, it will become fainter and more diffuse, and then it will disappear again.”