Jun 29, 2009

Japan's KAGUYA Spacecraft smashes into Moon (on purpose)


The video above is an astounding motion picture taken by Japan's Kaguya Spacecraft, as it neared it's destination, a crash-landing inside a crater on the Moon's Northern Pole.
The Kaguya Spacecraft was launched on September 14, 2007 and it's main orbiter circled the moon for a year and 8 months, taking high-definition images of the Moon's topography. The plan for the end of the mission was to have it collide on purpose into a lunar crater, and to try and study the impact and whatever may be thrown out of the crater. The primary hope was to discover large amounts of subsurface ice.
The Kaguya craft was ordered to degrade it's orbit in February, and on June 10 it crash-landed on the Moon.
Officially named the Selenological and Engineering Explorer (SELENE), the spacecraft was given the nickname Kaguya after the princess in the Japanese folklore story The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter. - ( APOD )

The video is amazing and -FUPPETS- is ridiculously overjoyed to have seen it.
In April of this year, Kaguya captured a most-beautiful Earthrise over the horizon of the Moon.


Supreme ass-kickery.

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