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Space & Planetary Science

Today's Video and Twitter Blooper

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
June 22, 2009

Twitter posting from ARC PAO’s Dolores Beasley @ddbeasley “LCROSS-sized impacts occur on the moon @ 3-4 times monthly. Our impact won’t damage the moon or change its orbit in any way!”
Keith’s note: Hmm, LCROSS is an “impactor” – something that will crash into the moon at high speed. As such, it will most certainly do some “damage”. That’s the whole point. Hopefully it will do enough damage such that a lot of debris will be thrown up in a large plume that can be scrutinized for its composition. As for affecting the moon’s orbit – the effect may be small, but all such collisions perturb the moon’s orbit – albeit ever so slightly.
But then there is this collosal goofiness at our least illustrious newspaper here in Metro DC, the Washington Examiner “NASA moon bombing violates space law & may cause conflict with lunar ET/UFO civilizations” which states “If the true intent of the LCROSS mission moon bombing is a hostile act by NASA against known extraterrestrial civilizations and settlements on the moon, then NASA and by extension the U.S. government are guilty of aggressive war which is the most serious of war crimes under the U.N. Charter and the Geneva Conventions, to which the U.S. is subject.”
There was a goofy TV show on last night called “Impact” where “a piece of a brown dwarf” hits the moon, makes it twice as heavy as Earth, changes the laws of physics, and sends the uber heavy Moon on a collision course with Earth. Maybe that is what Dolores is referring to. Video below.

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