Monday, September 25, 2017

Lost and found, Moon version


SMART-1 was a European lunar orbiting satellite that spun around the Moon for three years, and then conducted a controlled crash on the surface in September 2006.  Though they knew where it crashed and even got a picture of it, a picture of the crash location has never been located.

Until now.   A gentleman named Phil Stooke found the crash site in imagery from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), a NASA mission still in orbit around the Moon. I don't know when the imagery was captured;  I can guarantee it was after late June 2009, when the LRO went into orbit around the Moon.

So, the article has the picture of the crash site. So that's where the mission ended.  A bit of astronomical closure.

New observations reveal a lunar orbiter’s final resting place 


No comments: