The LAdEE successfulcessfully blasted off
last night, creating a fireball that could be seen down
much of the Eastern Seaboard. You can watch NASA's
launch video below, or look through a set of photos
submitted by enthusiasts from Virginia to
Massachusetts.
Original: A new NASA spacecraft that launches today
for the moon seeks to answer a 40-year question about
our nearest celestial neighbor. Back on the Apollo 17
mission, as the command module orbited the moon,
Commander Eugene Cernan caught sight of what he
described as "streamers" — an aurora borealis-like
effect bursting from the lunar horizon. (You can see
Cerman's sketch of the "streamers" below.) Now,
today's planned launch of the Lunar Atmosphere and
Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) means that NASA
will be able to closely investigate the lunar dust and thin
atmosphere around the moon, an investigation that will
hopefully yield clues on what the streamers were that
Cernan saw all those years ago.
LADEE program scientist Sarah Noble spoke with
Space.com to give more details on what NASA hopes
the spacecraft will find once it enters orbit around the
moon in approximately one month. Noble says that it's
"an ideal time to go and take a look at [the moon] while
it's still in its pristine, natural state." With increasing
interest in visiting the moon from both the US and
other international space agencies, Noble is excited to
see what can be learned since there have been relatively
few lunar investigations and landings in recent years.
LADEE WILL TRY TO SOLVE A DECADES-OLD MYSTERY
As for the "streamer" phenomenon, Noble says that the
common theory is that it was caused by "very tiny
particles of dust getting lofted tens of kilometers up into
the sky," but that's just a guess — now, LADEE should
be able to find out much more. "This is finally an
opportunity [for us] to go and follow this mystery that
has been puzzling scientists for almost 50 years," she
says. "We're very excited to finally get an opportunity to
understand what the dust environment is going to be
like around the moon."
The streamer investigation is hardly the only thine that
LADEE will be investigating — NASA will also be testing a
laser-based space communication system that will
theoretically operate at the same speed as a top-tier
broadband internet connection on Earth, but over a
238,900 mile distance. The data LADEE collects will also
be used to help NASA with future manned missions to
the moon — moon dust is a lot more "difficult" to deal
with, so LADEE's tests could help the agency design
future equipment that can stand up to the harsh moon
environment. The craft, which is scheduled to launch
tonight at 11:27PM ET, will orbit the moon for about
three months once it arrives, after which it'll go into a
controlled crash on the lunar surface.
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