A NASA mission to search for water on the moon needs help from citizen scientists with 10-12″ aperture telescopes to observe a lunar impact in early October. The project is actively asking for you to send in your images of the impact. These images will provide a valuable addition to the archive of data chronicling the impact and its aftermath.

The LCROSS mission is going to search for ice crystals by sending a rocket crashing into the moon causing a big impact and creating a crater, throwing tons of debris and potentially water ice and vapor above the lunar surface. This impact will release materials from the lunar surface that will be analyzed for the presence of hydrated minerals which would tell researchers if water is there or not. This crash will be so big that we on Earth may be able to view the resulting plume of material it ejects with a good amateur telescope.

The impact ejecta cloud should be in view of Earth assets just several seconds after impact and will peak in brightness around 30-100 seconds after impact. Mission scientists estimate that the Centaur impact plume may be visible through amateur-class telescopes with apertures as small as 10 to 12 inches.

Projected lunar impact is on October 9, 2009 at 11:30 UT (7:30 a.m. EDT, 4:30 a.m. PDT), +/- 30 minutes. The impact time will be refined as the mission progresses. Two weeks prior to impact, the impact time will be known to within a second. LCROSS will impact at the south pole of the Moon. The final site selection will be made 30 days prior to impact.

Additional information and a call for proposals to fund astronomer time and travel in support of LCROSS observations will be available soon – contact Jennifer Heldmann for additional information.

Project owners + coordinators:
Brian Day
Jennifer Heldmann