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Lunar Prospector Went Down Without a Trace
By Greg Clark
Staff Writer
posted: 08:24 am ET
03 September 1999
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prospectorWhen NASA scientists smashed the Lunar Prospector spacecraft into the dish of a moon crater July 31, they surmised the impact might blow a cloud of dust and debris into the space above the crash. By carefully observing the plume of ejected material, scientists thought they might be able to determine whether water or ice exists under the lunar surface. While the spacecraft apparently demolished itself right on target, the carefully focused telescopes of agencies, institutions and amateur astronomers seem to have seen nothing different from any other lunar day. NASA announced Friday that nobody detected any visible cloud of debris. But statements from the agency and scientists involved in planning the crash as the finale of Prospector's 18-month orbiting mission said a startling cloud of dust wasn't critical to the hunt for water. In fact, the lack of a debris plume may be evidence that the spacecraft hit its mark, they said. Engineers aimed the spacecraft to plummet into the belly of a crater, where water -- if it does exist on the moon -- would most likely have collected. An impact inside the crater might not be visible above the rim of the crater, whereas a big cloud above the rim might indicate that the craft smashed into the cliffs at the crater's top, too high provoke any sign of water. David Goldstein, leader of the University of Texas team that proposed the crash said there was no large signal of water vapor detected from Earth. "But we weren't expecting a huge signal," he said. Under the best conditions, Goldstein's team expected to see only the weak spectral signature of water and a related molecule formed by the breakdown of water. Scientists interpreting data from the Hubble Space Telescope, the McDonald Observatory in Texas, and the Keck telescope in Hawaii, are still sifting through information, looking for spectral signs of water. They expect to release a report of their findings in the next several weeks.
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