Click on the image for a larger image. Credit: NASA/Ames Research Center
And then there were six...
Since long before the joint launch of LRO and LCROSS, in late June, amateur and professional observers alike have pondered where best to target the LCROSS Centaur upper stage with it's shepherding observational satellite following only 400 kilometers behind. Since shortly before the launch the time and date of the impact and which of the Moon's two polar regions have been widely published.
At approximately 1130 hrs, Coordinated Universal Time, on October 9, the exhausted LCROSS Centaur upper stage will slam into the Moon's southern hemisphere, inside the rim of one of that region's many abyssal, permanently shadowed craters. Now, following years of speculation, mission planners at NASA Ames Research Center have narrowed the candidates down to six, some without names.
Among them is, perhaps ironically, is Shoemaker, next to Faustini, both barely visible through a kind of pass; a break in the Near Side rim of the vast South Pole-Aitken Basin, most of which resides on the Moon's Far Side. Between the Moon's eroded, broken vertebrae, poorly explored massifs like Malapert, a flash of kinetic energy, common-enough on the Moon, will be the scene of the swiftest, most carefully and closely observed explosions in history.
And the nominees are...
And then there were six...
Since long before the joint launch of LRO and LCROSS, in late June, amateur and professional observers alike have pondered where best to target the LCROSS Centaur upper stage with it's shepherding observational satellite following only 400 kilometers behind. Since shortly before the launch the time and date of the impact and which of the Moon's two polar regions have been widely published.
At approximately 1130 hrs, Coordinated Universal Time, on October 9, the exhausted LCROSS Centaur upper stage will slam into the Moon's southern hemisphere, inside the rim of one of that region's many abyssal, permanently shadowed craters. Now, following years of speculation, mission planners at NASA Ames Research Center have narrowed the candidates down to six, some without names.
Among them is, perhaps ironically, is Shoemaker, next to Faustini, both barely visible through a kind of pass; a break in the Near Side rim of the vast South Pole-Aitken Basin, most of which resides on the Moon's Far Side. Between the Moon's eroded, broken vertebrae, poorly explored massifs like Malapert, a flash of kinetic energy, common-enough on the Moon, will be the scene of the swiftest, most carefully and closely observed explosions in history.
And the nominees are...
| LCROSS Candidate Impact Craters | |||||
| Designation | Crater Name | Sun Mask | Eath Mask | Latitude | Longitude |
| SP A | Faustini | 2.3 | 0.9 | -87.2° | 89°E |
| SP B | Shoemaker | 3.5 | -0.6 | -88.5° | 50°E |
| SP C | Cabeus | 3.0 | 8.5 | -85° | 35.5°W |
| SP CB | Cabeus B | 0.9 | -0.5 | -81.7° | 54.5°W |
| SP CC | none | 2.5 | 0.1 | -83.5° | 16°W |
| SP D | Hawworth | 2.7 | 0.8 | -87.4° | 5°W |
| SP F | none | 1.8 | 0.5 | -82.3° | 12°E |
| SP G | none | 2.4 | 0.4 | -84.3° | 1°E |
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