Other nations have Moon plans, too.īut to have survived, the water must be in the form of ice in places always hidden from the Sun. Previous missions have provided evidence for water ice tucked away in permanently shadowed polar craters.Īny water on the lunar surface would be very helpful in the creation of permanent bases on the Moon, as outlined last year by President Bush. Theophilus was the bishop of Alexandria and died in 412 AD. Meanwhile, the trickiest task that the SMART-1 scientists have set themselves is to use a spacecraft spectrometer to look for the infrared signature of water ice, and perhaps frozen carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide too. Theophilus is a spectacular crater near the center of the moon’s disk. "Anything left on the Moon cannot be resolved in any Hubble image," According to the Space Telescope Science Institute, which operates Hubble for NASA. If SMART-1 can get an eyeful, why not use the Hubble space telescope to take photos of the Apollo landing sites? Hubble did photograph the Moon, in 1999. Mapping prospective landing sites for future robotic and human missions are possible too. Doing so, topography maps of specific lunar real estate can be created. The extension permits stereo measurements of select areas of interest. Last month, ESA announced that the lunar mission would be extended by one year, pushing back the mission end date from August 2005 to August 2006. SMART-1 arrived in lunar orbit last November.
The spaceship screamed past at about 5,102 miles per hour, then slowed to careen through space at 3,489 mph, according to NASA. Along with these observations and others, the spacecraft will also be busy gleaning data in preparation for future international lunar exploration missions, he emphasized. Then it skimmed past the moon on Monday, flying about 81 miles above the lunar surface, passing over three Apollo landing sites. SMART-1 operators also plan sequences that keep the probe's camera specially trained on some landing sites as it sweeps overhead, Foing said. "We shall search for them, with measurements not only in black and white, but also in three colors giving some information about minerals, weathering or plume disturbance," he said. TOKYO - Japan launched a rocket Thursday carrying an X-ray telescope that will explore the origins of the universe as well as a small lunar lander.
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