Who found the water on the Moon? At just over two tonnes, the
second stage of an Atlas V rocket makes for an unusual ‘kinetic
probe’. Nonetheless on October 9, 2009 NASA deliberately
impacted a spent Centaur rocket into the lunar south polar
crater Cabeus. The target area was a permanently shadowed region
within this crater. The impact, not surprisingly, ejected a
spectacular plume of debris, dust, and vapour. Science
experiment: observe the system, perturb it, and measure what
happens The US scientists had thrown a heavy object at the Moon.
They then threw all the instruments possible to monitor the
impact. The prize was a decades-long search to directly find
water on the Moon. The impact would have been majestic to watch.
Picture those slow motion images of Apollo astronauts on the
Moon. Hold that thought and then imagine the impact. An observer
could marvel at the slow motion, low gravity, return of the dust
and debris cloud to the Moon’s surface. If you could see in the
infrared, the impact flash lasts fo