“We didn’t just find a little bit; we found a significant amount”
When it followed the Centaur booster rocket into the lunar crater Cabeus on 9th October [Whilst wondering if it would be its friend - Ed] it appeared as if Nasa’s LCross mission hadn’t made as big a splash as expected. But at a press conference today Nasa revealed that the preliminary examination of the data collected showed evidence of “a significant amount” of water vapour and water-ice in the impact plume. Which adds yet more complexity to the story of water in the solar system. Image: The visible camera image showing the ejecta plume at about 20 seconds after impact. Credit: Nasa. Here’s a larger annotated version of that image. More images here.
Hopefully the press conference will appear on NasaTV’s YouTube channel.
I await the next SaN and Patrick eating his words.
Its good news
The sooner us humans realise that our internal arguments on this wee planet are pointless and miniscule the better for mankind.
Why don’t we just get along.
we are wasting a lot of energy fighting amongst ourselves.
Yes, discovering aliens will definitely lead to an outbreak of world peace among mankind – unless, of course, we go to war with the aliens or they’re more advanced than we are and discover that we make exotic food for the import market.
[i]“We are the world. We are the children. We are the ones who make a brighter day, so let’s start giving. There’s a choice we’re making…”[/i]
Everybody sing along now…
Right so! They’ve found the water. Now all we need is for them to find the whiskey – and a few glasses.
I shared this one with herself this morning, saying that when I was 15 I would have found this the most astonishing news of my young life.
Says she, it’s the water coming up through the dining room floor I’m more concerned about.
Panic ,
‘Why don’t we just get along.’
Because we’re human . At least us ‘uns’ are and ‘themmuns, arent
If it was’nt for ‘themuns’ it would be a peaceful world eh ?
Dave ,
‘discovering aliens will definitely lead to an outbreak of world peace among mankind ‘
Just like the discovery of ‘aliens ‘ here on earth led to world peace . Ask any of the indigenous peoples of the Americas , Africa and Oceania , Asia , how their visiting ‘aliens’ treated them . Any Pole will tell you that his ‘alien ‘ neighbours loved Poland so much that they carved it up several times between them. Even Maggie Thatcher loved Germany so much that she thought there should be two of them
Rory ,
‘Now all we need is for them to find the whiskey – and a few glasses.’
Afraid not . I hear the pubs on the Moon have no atmosphere
Now if Ireland defeat France today by 3-0 I’ll be over the Moon
So just to keep this political it would seem that the republican administration under George W. attacked Iraq without a UN mandate because they wanted to find WMDs and were pilloried for doing so but NASA under Obama have attacked the moon without provocation of any kind and again without a UN mandate but have at least find the water they were looking for. So the lesson is, whoever you attack make sure you find what you said you were looking for and make sure they can’t fire back.