Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
May 2007
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2007aas...210.4201v&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society Meeting 210, #42.01; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 39, p.156
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
The ESA SMART-1 spacecraft impacted the Moon on September 3, 2006. A sequence of images of the Lunar surface at the impact site was obtained at the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (Mauna Kea, Hawaii) using the wide-field infrared camera WIRCam. Each image is 10-s long in a narrow-band filter (molecular H2 at 2.2 microns) with a 5-s gap between consecutive images. One of the images shows the extremely bright flash of the impact itself. We will briefly present the observations and the difficulties related to the awkward sequencing of the imaging for such a rapidly evolving phenomenon. A new estimate of the brightness of the flash itself will be given, based on a reprocessing of the saturated image of the flash and a comparison with bright stars observed in the same conditions. Moving to the post-flash images, we will show how they reveal, for the first time for a lunar impact, the ejecta plume developing and fading following the impact. This plume was first thought to be the spreading of the ejecta on the surface, with a change in direction likely to come from the deflection by the slope of the mountain being hit in grazing incidence by the spacecraft. We will show how these images, once carefully registered with respect to the SMART-1 images of the landing site from orbits before the last one, point more to the plume reaching an altitude where it is illuminated by the Sun while the impact site is still in the shadow, only illuminated by the Earthshine. Tentative determinations of the speed and elevation of the plume over the 90 seconds following the impact will be highlighted, with in mind the various models of the LCROSS impact.
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