Hi Lesley,
I am not involved with the LCROSS mission, but I
did watch the news coverage of the lunar impact on television this
morning. As far as I know, none of the other Solar Week scientists are
involved with LCROSS, so we probably don't have any more information
about the impact for you than what has been posted on the Internet and
shown on television.
I know a lot of people were expecting to see an gigantic
explosion and an enormous cloud of material from the impact when they
watched it on television. As I am not involved with the LCROSS
mission, I have no idea whether or not this was actually a realistic
expectation or not. People watching the coverage on television may not
have seen a big plume, but the scientific instruments on board the
LCROSS spacecraft may have recorded something that was not visible to
the human eye. We will have to give the scientists involved with
LCROSS time to study these observations before we know more.
People
watching the news coverage on television may have been disappointed,
but this does not mean the mission was a
failure. Space exploration is not like what we see on science fiction
television shows like "Star Trek" and "Stargate." On these television
shows, the scientists making astronomical observations or measurements
in space always know their results immediately, without spending a lot
of time and effort to analyze the data. After all, they only have a 60
minute time-slot in which to make their scientific discoveries and save
the planet. Real life is not like that. It can take months, even
years to analyze spacecraft observations. We have to be patient. I'm
sure that the scientists working on the LCROSS mission will
announce their findings when they have finished analyzing the data, but
it could take a while for them to complete their data analysis. While you are waiting to hear the results, you can learn more about the LCROSS mission here:
http://www.nasa.gov/missi...ROSS/main/index.html
Kris