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Not that the moon has ever done anything to upset or offend NASA, but that hasn’t stopped the American space administration from slamming not one but two manmade objects into the lunar surface – and all in the name of science and discovery.
NASA guilty of abusing the moon for the sake of science. Image: Bernt Rostad/Flickr.
In an attempt to kick up hidden ice from the moon’s dusty surface, NASA crashed a defunct rocket into the lunar south pole at around 07:30 this morning. Some four minutes later, the rocket hull was followed down by a camera-equipped probe, which captured and transmitted pictures of the first impact as it too headed for swift obliteration.
Although subsequent still and video imagery shown by NASA during a news conference was largely blurry and hard to decipher – and a far cry from the apparent spectacle many had been anticipating – officials for the space administration were still upbeat regarding data collected from the dual impacts.
“What matters for us: What is the nature of the stuff kicked up going in?” enthused NASA project manager Dan Andrews in an AP report. “All nine instruments [aboard the probe] were working fine and we received good data.”
NASA has said researchers are already sifting through the collected data in an attempt to confirm the presence of dislodged water previously held beneath the moon’s barren landscape. Andrews said the administration hopes to have concrete answers in around two weeks.
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