An enhanced version of its X-ray detector, for instance, will fly on India’s first mission to the Moon, due for launch in late 2007 or early 2008. SMART-1 technologies will be used on future missions. ![]() “That’s the best theory in town by a long way,” says team member Manuel Grande from the University of Wales in Aberystwyth, UK. Its cameras have beamed back the best digital maps of the Moon ever made, revealing features as small as 40 m across.Īnalysis of the observations will help scientists piece together the history of the Moon, and determine whether it first formed when a Mars-sized body slammed into Earth, spewing debris into space. The spacecraft has now orbited the Moon more than 2000 times, mapping minerals in the lunar surface. The spacecraft’s primary purpose was to test new “cheap-and-cheerful” technologies, including miniaturised detectors and an innovative new “ion drive” engine that nudged the spacecraft through space by expelling xenon ions. You can see the Moon there and in the sidebar you have different visualization options. The interface of the program is very simple. This is a premier application for amateur astronomers interested in the moon. The probe was launched in September 2003 and took 14 months to reach the Moon. Virtual Moon Atlas Light is a program that allows you to explore and analyze the Moon. And over the following days, astronomers will look for the blanket of ejecta that settles back down to the lunar surface, possibly covering an area of about 1 square kilometre. Scientists expect the washing machine-sized probe to gouge out a crater 3 metres to 10 m wide. In that case, amateur astronomers with small telescopes or even just binoculars might see a bright dust cloud against the dark lunar surface. If much of the debris flies up to a height of 20 kilometres, it will start to catch the sunlight. ![]() The observations could also reveal the composition of the plume of soil that SMART-1 throws up. Large telescopes might detect a tiny flash on impact when the spacecraft’s hydrazine fuel vaporises. ![]() Ground-based telescopes should see dust thrown up by the plume reflecting “Earthshine” – light reflected from Earth.Īstronomers will study the impact using many ground-based observatories, including the Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) network of radio telescopes, as well as the Swedish Odin space observatory. The impact site will be in darkness to prevent the glare of Moonlight from overwhelming observations of the crash. “It’s likely that it’s going to ricochet off the surface,” said chief mission scientist Bernard Foing at a press conference in London, UK, on Thursday. A Virtual Moon Atlas is an application which allows its users to see the full moon through various lenses. SMART-1 will hit the lunar surface at about 7000 kilometres per hour, just over three times the maximum speed of the supersonic Concorde. Download Virtual Moon Atlas 6.0 for Windows free.
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