A New Look at an Old Neighbor Moon

We have yet to uncover the full wealth of scientific information the moon holds. It at the cornerstone of understanding the birth and evolution of Earth and other planets, therefore we need to explore it.

The moon looks very unchanging and calm in the night sky and is rarely thought of as an active planetary body. What most people don't know, is the moon receives LCROSS-sized impacts about once a week -- that's more than 50 impacts a year! It also is interesting to note that it experiences thousands of "moonquakes" each year and releases energy by heat flow, electromagnetic conduction and tides from Earth and the Sun.

Moon's Copernicus Crater -- Lunar Orbiter Photo 1966 (Credit: NASA)

LCROSS is unique compared to the natural barrage of material impacting the moon because it's designed to know exactly where and when it will impact -- the Cabeus crater near the moon's south pole.