Who’s Excited To Bomb The Moon Tomorrow?
If you haven’t been watching the news recently, you might not know that tomorrow morning we’re going to bomb the Moon. That’s right, the United States is going to unleash some space bombs at 7:30amET – hopefully the Moon people don’t get angry and return fire!
The descriptions of this event is almost as exciting as the event itself.
On CNN this morning, co-anchor Kiran Chetry teased it as, “They’re actually bombing the moon. But it’s to find out about some very, very, very interesting things back here on Earth.”
And on Fox News, co-host Steve Doocy said, “T-minus 24 hours, tomorrow at this time NASA will perform a crash course on the Moon. Take a look at this animation on what’s set tomorrow morning. NASA is sending a rocket that will ultimately crash into the Moon.”
On Morning Joe – well just look at the full screen graphic in the top left.
The main Drudge Report headline about the event is “NASA to bomb the Moon on Friday…”
That Drudge headline links to a Discover magazine story, which explains what’s about to happen, and why, very clearly:
The idea is that over millions and billions of years, a lot of comets have hit the Moon. The water from these comets hits the surface and sublimates away… but if any settles at the bottoms of deep craters near the Moon’s poles, these permanently shadowed regions can act as a refrigerator, keeping the water from disappearing. It can stay there, locked up as ice, for a long, long time. Some estimates indicate there could be billions of tons of ice near the Moon’s south pole.
Detecting that water is tough. Radar results have been inconclusive, with some people saying there’s lots of water, and others saying there’s none at all. By impacting a probe there, any ice located at the impact site will be shot up above the lunar surface, where sunlight will break it up into H+ and OH- molecules, which can be detected. Thus, LCROSS.
Check out NASA’s site on the mission for more information as well. But really, just tune into your favorite news network tomorrow at 7:30amET and watch the U.S. bomb the Moon. Seriously, how great a media story will this be? Space, bombs…if only we could somehow involve Michael Jackson.
Here’s the NASA animation being used on a constant loop on cable news (the good part starts around 1:30):
