{ "count": 11, "next": null, "previous": null, "results": [ { "id": 4054, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4054/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2013-03-19T13:00:00-04:00", "title": "LAMP Observes GRAIL Impact", "description": "The Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission comprised a pair of satellites that together measured the gravity field of the Moon. GRAIL ended its mission with a planned impact into the side of a lunar mountain on December 17, 2012. Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) maneuvered into an orbit that would allow it to observe the impact. One of LRO's instruments, the Lyman-Alpha Mapping Project (LAMP), looked for the chemical signatures of a number of elements, including hydrogen and mercury, in the dust plume kicked up by the impact.This animation shows the relative positions of GRAIL and LRO at the time of the impact, as well as the view from LAMP as it scanned for the dust plume. The LAMP sensor is a 6.0° x 0.3° slit that was positioned to look over the limb of the Moon, so that it would be pointed into the tenuous dust plume with only the sky in the background. This observation was possible, in part, because GRAIL impacted on the night side of the Moon, where there was no concern that LAMP's sensitive detector could be blinded by sunlit terrain. From Earth, the Moon was a waxing crescent at the time of the impact. || ", "hits": 34 }, { "id": 4043, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4043/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2013-03-06T11:00:00-05:00", "title": "LRO Peers into Permanent Shadows", "description": "The Moon's permanently shadowed regions, or PSRs, are places on the Moon that haven't seen the Sun in millions, or even billions, of years. The Earth's tilted axis allows sunlight to fall everywhere on its surface, even at the poles, for at least part of the year. But the Moon's tilt relative to the Sun is only 1.6°, not enough to get sunlight into some deep craters near the lunar north and south poles. PSRs are therefore some of the coldest, darkest places in the solar system.Because of that, PSRs are expected to be excellent traps for volatiles, chemicals that would normally vaporize and escape into space, and this includes water. Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) includes several instruments designed to peer into the PSR darkness and measure temperature, reflectivity, and neutron absorption, all of which are clues to what chemicals might be hiding there. This animation shows where the PSRs are and in what ways LRO can see inside them. || ", "hits": 239 }, { "id": 11218, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11218/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2013-03-06T11:00:00-05:00", "title": "The Moon's Permanently Shadowed Regions", "description": "As you watch the Moon over the course of a month, you'll notice that different features are illuminated by the Sun at different times. However, there are some parts of the Moon that never see sunlight. These areas are called permanently shadowed regions, and they appear dark because unlike on the Earth, the axis of the Moon is nearly perpendicular to the direction of the sun's light. The result is that the bottoms of certain craters are never pointed toward the Sun, with some remaining dark for over two billion years. However, thanks to new data from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, we can now see into these dark craters in incredible detail. || ", "hits": 471 }, { "id": 10755, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10755/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2011-04-08T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "LAMP: Peering Into the Lunar Dark", "description": "The Lyman-Alpha Mapping Project (LAMP) is an instrument on NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission to map and study the Moon. LAMP is a spectrograph that images the ultraviolet region of the spectrum. Utilizing the faint glow of stars and other light reflected off the lunar surface, LAMP can see inside the darkest areas of the Moon to search for water ice and other valuable resources. || ", "hits": 65 }, { "id": 3785, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3785/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2010-10-21T13:55:00-04:00", "title": "LAMP Observes the LCROSS Impact", "description": "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. || ", "hits": 43 }, { "id": 10683, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10683/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2010-10-21T13:55:00-04:00", "title": "LAMP Observes the LCROSS Impact - WIth Overlays", "description": "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. || lamp_lcross_youtube_hq.14_print.jpg (1280x720) [89.6 KB] || lamp_lcross_ipod_lg_web.png (320x180) [163.3 KB] || lamp_lcross_ipod_lg_thm.png (80x40) [11.9 KB] || lamp_lcross_appletv.m4v (960x540) [13.1 MB] || lamp_lcross_prores.mov (1280x720) [194.7 MB] || lamp_lcross_wmv.wmv (1280x720) [11.5 MB] || lamp_lcross_youtube_hq.mov (1280x720) [16.7 MB] || lamp_lcross_appletv.webmhd.webm (960x540) [3.9 MB] || lamp_lcross_ipod_lg.m4v (640x360) [5.7 MB] || lamp_lcross_nasaportal.mov (640x360) [8.6 MB] || lamp_lcross_nasacast.mp4 (320x240) [2.4 MB] || lamp_lcross_svs.mpg (512x288) [4.3 MB] || ", "hits": 22 }, { "id": 10685, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10685/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2010-10-21T13:55:00-04:00", "title": "LCROSS Plume Model with LAMP viewport", "description": "The movie shows the simulated evolution of the vapor cloud of molecular hydrogen from the impact of LCROSS into the southern polar region of the Moon. The movie is displayed in the frame of reference of the LAMP instrument, with its field of view shown by the vertical red line at [0,0]. The LCROSS impact site moves to the left as time goes on in this reference frame. It shows how the timing of the signal LAMP detects is a combination of the expansion of the cloud and the motion of LRO past the impact site. It also shows how the signal observed by LAMP is from only a small portion of the entire cloud, emphasizing the need to use modeling to relate the observations to the overall release. || ", "hits": 33 }, { "id": 10686, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10686/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2010-10-21T13:55:00-04:00", "title": "LRO Observes the LCROSS Impact", "description": "NASA scientists have revealed the lunar soil inside shadowy craters is rich in useful materials, that the moon is chemically active, and that it also has a water cycle. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, by observing the impact of the LCROSS spacecraft, helped contribute to these new findings. || ", "hits": 51 }, { "id": 10483, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10483/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2009-10-17T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "LRO Early Results Press Conference Visuals", "description": "These are the visuals used to support the LRO Press Conference \"NASA's LRO Mission Mapping Lunar South Pole in Uprecedented Detail\" held on September 17, 2009 at Goddard Space Flight Center. || ", "hits": 68 }, { "id": 10479, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10479/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2009-09-11T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "A Tour of the LRO Instrument Suite", "description": "Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Project Scientist Rich Vondrak explains the LRO suite of instruments and how each will greatly benefit our understanding of the Moon.For complete transcript, click here. || LRO_vondrak_ipod.02402_print.jpg (1024x576) [90.1 KB] || LRO_vondrak_ipod_web.png (320x180) [177.9 KB] || LRO_vondrak_ipod_thm.png (80x40) [16.3 KB] || LRO_vondrak_ipod.webmhd.webm (960x540) [46.3 MB] || LRO_vondrak_ipod.m4v (640x360) [70.8 MB] || LRO_vondrak.wmv (320x236) [37.5 MB] || LRO_vondrak_nasacast.mp4 (320x176) [21.6 MB] || ", "hits": 48 }, { "id": 10334, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10334/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2008-08-15T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "LRO/LCROSS Launch, Deploy, and Mission Animation", "description": "The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter or LRO will give scientists more information about the structure of the Moon's interior; the types of rock found there, events that shaped it, and the conditions that exist at the surface. LRO will spend one year in a polar orbit collecting this information. LRO's instrument suite will provide the highest resolution and the most comprehensive data set and the most detailed maps ever returned from the moon. It will carry an additional payload called LCROSS. The identification of water is very important to the future of human activities on the Moon. LCROSS will excavate the permanently dark floor of one of the Moon's polar craters with two heavy impactors to test the theory that ancient ice lies buried there. The impact will eject material from the crater's surface to create a plume that specialized instruments will be able to analyze for the presence of water (ice and vapor), hydrocarbons and hydrated material. || ", "hits": 40 } ] }