Astronomy Down Under

European probe to crash on the Moon

31 Aug at 14:22 by Wilson

And on purpose. SMART-1 will impact on the Lunar surface at some point on the 2nd or 3rd of September, ending its mission in a spectacular way. The impact will likely be visible from the Earth even to amateur astronomers, and the ESA is calling for people to help with observations.

The expected impact is a 05:41 UTC on 03/09; that is 15:41 in Eastern Australia, which means that the impact will not be visible here (the moon will be visible, but the impact will be lost in the daylight). It is, however, possible that the impact will happen in the previous orbit, at 00:36 UTC, or even the one before, at 19:33 UTC on 02/09 (or, conceivably, the one after, at 10:43 UTC, which is 20:43 AEST). This page has visibility charts for the possible impact times; the impact will happen on the “night” side of the Moon, which will make it much easier to spot from the Earth. It will not be visible with the naked eyes from anywhere on Earth, though.