NASA photos depict moon strike created Plume

vIndianz.com (Oct. 21, 2009) — NASA’s much-hyped mission to throw a spacecraft into the moon bowed out several valuable data after all, scientists said.

Nasa_Photo_Moon Latest images demonstrate a mile-high plume of lunar debris from the Cabeus crater soon after the space agency’s Centaur rocket struck on October 9.

“We were blown away by the data returned,” the mission’s chief scientist Anthony Colaprete said in a report on Friday from the Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California, which managed the launch. “The team is working hard on the analysis, and the data appear to be of very high quality.”

In media coverage after the impact, lots of observers said they were dissatisfied at the lack of demonstration. However scientists believed the mission was carried out for “a scientific purpose, not to put on a fireworks display for the public,” said space consultant Alan Stern, a former NASA associate administrator for science.

But Michio Kaku, a professor at the City College of New York and host of Sci Q Sundays on the Science Channel, said NASA might be jumping the gun in calling the consequences “a smashing success,” acting in response to public criticism of the mission.

“They got beautiful pictures of the event, but that’s not why we spent $79 million,” Kaku said. “Ice on the moon is more valuable than gold.”

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