At 7:30 a.m. Eastern Time, NASA's Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, crashed into a crater near the Moon's South Pole. The probe was hoping to measure the presence of water on and in the Lunar surface.
Weeks ago, LCROSS found evidence that there is more water in Lunar soil than previously thought. The crash today was meant to 'kick up' some of that dust in order to get a better estimate of how much water is contained in the soil.
Hundreds of telescopes including the powerful Hubble Space Telescope confirmed the presence of a plume after the impact. It is hoped that the combined power of these observations will provide useful data to the NASA researchers. "We have the data we need to actually address the questions we set out to address," said Anthony Colaprete a researcher on the LCROSS project.
Some people, however, are skeptical that the $79 Million price tag was far too high for the data recovered. This is an important step towards building a permanent outpost on the moon and exploring the solar system. We may be able to get some of the water needed from the moon and devote more payload to other crucial supplies.
Information taken from:
NASA
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LCROSS/main/index.html
CNN
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/space/10/09/probe.moon.crash/index.html
