Planets and Moons  ID: 3785

LAMP Observes the LCROSS Impact

Visualizations by Ernie Wright Released on October 21, 2010
A two-ton Atlas Centaur rocket body, part of the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS), struck the floor of Cabeus crater, near the south pole of the moon, at 11:31 UT on October 9, 2009. The purpose of the crash was to create a plume of debris that could be examined for the presence of water and other chemicals in the lunar regolith.

The Lyman-Alpha Mapping Project (LAMP) instrument aboard Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) observed the tenuous vapor cloud created by the LCROSS impact. LAMP is LRO's "night vision." Most of the time, it uses the ultraviolet light in starlight to peer into deep shadows on the moon's surface. For the LCROSS impact, LAMP was pointed just above the lunar horizon to watch for the arrival of a rapidly expanding cloud of vaporized debris from the crash.

In this animation, the viewer looks down the LAMP boresight and through its narrow window. The LAMP sensor lights up as the leading edge of the expanding vapor cloud passes through its field of view. What's shown here is actually the difference between the data recorded after the LCROSS impact and that recorded on LRO's previous orbit. See this entry for more about the process of subtracting the background to enhance the LAMP signal.

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The LAMP sensor slit scans the lunar horizon, lighting up as it encounters the vapor cloud created by the LCROSS impact. This version includes a date/time overlay.
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The LAMP sensor slit scans the lunar horizon, lighting up as it encounters the vapor cloud created by the LCROSS impact. This version omits the date/time overlay.
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The date and time display by itself. The frames include an alpha channel.
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Four minutes before the LCROSS impact, the view across the terrain of the lunar south pole shows LRO and LCROSS approaching the impact site, with Earth in the background.
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About 40 seconds after impact, the leading edge of an expanding vapor cloud passes through LAMP's field of view.

 

In this version of the animation, overlays have been added comprising callouts and a graph of the LAMP sensor data that builds up over time.

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This video shows LAMP's view of the LCROSS plume. The line in the center of the screen is the LAMP viewport scanning across the horizon, passing through the plume, and moving on.
 

Related

LAMP Observes GRAIL Impact

Visualization Credits

Ernie Wright (UMBC): Lead Animator
Chris Smith (HTSI): Producer
Randy Gladstone (SwRI): Scientist
Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio

Science Paper:
Gladstone, G. Randall et al. (2010). LRO-LAMP observations of the LCROSS impact plume. Science, 330(6003)

Short URL to share this page:
https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3785

Mission:
LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter)

Data Used:
JPL/Horizon Orbital Ephemerides
Ephemeris - NASA/JPL - November 6, 2009
Planetary ephemerides
view all stories where this data set is used
LRO/LOLA/Digital Elevation Map also referred to as: DEM
August 2009 - September 2010
view all stories where this data set is used
LRO/LAMP/Lyman alpha and UV also referred to as: LRO LAMP
Data Compilation - October 9, 2009
view all stories where this data set is used
Note: While we identify the data sets used in these visualizations, we do not store any further details nor the data sets themselves on our site.

This item is part of these series:
The Moon
LRO - Animations

Keywords:
SVS >> Elevation data
SVS >> HDTV
SVS >> Lunar
SVS >> Moon
SVS >> LRO
SVS >> Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter
SVS >> LAMP
NASA Science >> Planets and Moons