SMART-1 impacts Moon
Sun Sep 3, 2006 at 20:54 UTC
At 05:42:22 UTC today, the SMART-1 spacecraft impacted the Moon's surface as planned, ending ESA's first solar-powered mission to another celestial body and Europe's first mission to the Moon. ESA estimates that impact occurred at 46.2° West, 34.4° South.
Scientists have received and are analysing the final data gathered by SMART-1 on 2 September, prior to today's Moon impact. In several of the images, the Moon's horizon can clearly been seen; excellent details of the surface are also visible.
Ground observation campaign
An impressive sequence of impact images was captured by the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT), a 3.6-meter optical/infrared telescope located atop the summit of Mauna Kea, a 4200-meter volcano on Hawaii's Big Island (see before, during, after image sequence below).
The CFHT observed the projected impact area between 07:00 - 08:44 CEST (05:00 06:44 UT), and astronomers were rewarded with a beautiful image of that indicates a very short impact flash, possibly lasting less than a second. While still to be confirmed, a preliminary assessment indicates the impact flash was possibly caused by thermal emission from the impact itself or by the release of spacecraft volatiles, such as the small amount of hydrazine fuel remaining on board.
"It was exciting to see the impact flash live from Hawaii, just after receiving, at ESOC, the last radio signal from SMART-1," said Prof. Pascale Ehrenfreund, from Leiden University, Impact Ground Campaign Coordinator.
Many other observatories, including both professional and amateurs sky watchers, also participated in ground observation activities.
"We look forward to collecting worldwide reports from this impact. We call upon the community to search for the ejecta blankets and for future lunar orbiters to search for the SMART-1 crater," says Bernard H. Foing, ESA's SMART-1 Project Scientist. Their updates will be published on the ESA portal as they are received in the coming days.
Image Credit: ESA/SPACE-X (Space Exploration Institute)
This oblique view of the lunar surface was taken on 2 September 2006 by the AMIE camera on board SMART-1 during the last few orbits prior to Moon impact, and provides a good view of the Moon's horizon.
This view was captured during the imaging session which took place bewteen 15:19 and 17:34 CEST (17:19 - 19:34 UTC).
Image Credit: ESA/SPACE-X (Space Exploration Institute)
This beautiful image of the lunar surface was taken on 2 September 2006 by the AMIE camera on board SMART-1 during the last few orbits prior to Moon impact, and shows a heavily cratered region of the Moon.
This view was captured during the imaging session which took place bewteen 15:19 and 17:34 CEST (17:19 - 19:34 UTC).
Image Credit: Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Corporation
This impressive sequence of SMART-1 impact images was captured by the 3.6-meter optical/infrared Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT), Hawaii, 3 September 2006.
The CFHT observed the projected impact area between 07:00 - 08:44 CEST (05:00 06:44 UT). The impact flash lasted only about 1 millisecond. It may have been caused by the thermal emission from the impact itself or by the release of spacecraft volatiles, such as the small amount of hydrazine fuel remaining on board.
Radio telescope observations
SMART-1 was also observed by a network of five cooperating radio telescopes over several months leading up to Moon impact. The observatories' activities are coordinated by the Joint Institute for Very Long Baseline Interferometry (JIVE), hosted by ASTRON (the Netherlands Foundation for Research in Astronomy), Dwingeloo, The Netherlands.
The participating observatories are capable of making highly sensitive observations, characterized by very accurate timing and the ability to detect very weak radio signals.
Starting in the spring of 2006, the cooperating telescopes observed radio signals emitted by SMART-1 and reflected from the Moon as part of a programme to test and validate the very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) technique. VLBI allows ground-based telescopes to track spacecraft with very high accuracy, and furthermore has applications in radio astronomy, including the testing of radio wave propagation in the vicinity of massive bodies like the Moon and the study of the Moon's surface physical properties.
In working with SMART-1, the radio telescopes applied the same techniques used by ground telescopes to track the descent of ESA's Huygens probe to the surface of Saturn's moon Titan in January 2005. This technique is also expected to be used in tracking China's Chang'e-series of Moon missions, to be launched starting in 2007.
European Space Agency News Release
