All is set for one of the biggest missions for NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) this year as it prepares on a mission to discover whether its earlier findings of water on the moon is true. Earlier, three different space probes have found the chemical signature of water all over the moon. Thus by bombing the South pole, NASA hopes to expose what it expects to be huge deposits of ice hidden beneath the surface. The LCROSS (Lunar CRater Observing and Sensing Satellite) mission will send a missile to blast a hole in the lunar surface near the moon’s South pole. According to NASA, the impact will produce a
plume which an orbiting satellite will then analyze.

The Centaur rocket will strike first, transforming 2200 kg of mass and 10 billion joules of kinetic energy into a blinding flash of heat and light. Researchers expect the impact to throw up a plume of debris as high as 10 km.

Close behind, the LCROSS mothership will photograph the collision for NASA TV and then fly right through the debris plume. Onboard spectrometers will analyze the sunlit plume for signs of water (H2O), water fragments (OH), salts, clays, hydrated minerals and assorted organic molecules.

UPDATE: Watch the VIDEO REPLAY of the NASA moon bombing impact HERE.

Watch the NASA moon bombing live online streaming. The LCROSS NASA moon bombing streaming video is available through NASA TV or via the SLOOH telescope system. Or for those who want to view the event using their own telescopes, here is a guideline from the National Geographic. The impact takes place on Oct 9, 2009 at 4:30 a.m. US PDT (7:30 a.m. US EDT, 10:30pm AEDT).

Unlike most cosmic impacts, though, the LCROSS crashes will have an audience: Many amateur astronomers in the Americas will have their telescopes trained on the impact site. Even more can watch the LCROSS moon impact on the NASA TV Web site.

Enthusiasts on the U.S. East Coast should tune in, since their view of the LCROSS impact will be blocked by early morning sunlight, experts say.

Only North, Central, and South America will be facing the moon at the time of the LCROSS impact, allowing astronomers and stargazers there a rare view, experts say.

Anyone in these regions with at least a 10-inch (25.4-centimeter) telescope should be able to catch a glimpse of dusty debris—and maybe water vapor—billowing into the sunlight above the crater’s rim, astronomers say.

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