The
60-year old 200-inch Hale Telescope on Palomar Mountain was
one of many telescopes across the globe and in space that were
called into action to watch the impact of NASA’s LCROSS
mission. LCROSS, short for Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing
Satellite, was intentionally crashed into a dark crater near
the south pole of the moon.
It is believed that craters such as this one, which never receive
sunlight, might harbor large quantities of water ice. It was
hoped that the impact would dredge up dust, rock and vaporized
ice into a giant plume of material that would be visible here
on earth with telescopes as small as 12 inches in aperture.
Astronomers could then analyze the ejected material in attempt
to confirm or deny the possibility of water ice being located
there. Unfortunately no impact plume was visible from any telescope
that observed the impact.
The best observations of this event were clearly made with the
Hale Telescope on Palomar. The old 200-inch was using an instrument
that removes any blurring affects caused by turbulence in our
atmosphere, giving it a resolving power greater than that of
the Hubble Space Telescope.
Tension and excitement in the data room at Palomar grew as the
clock ticked to the impact at 4:31 a.m. on Friday, Oct. 9. It
was standing room only as the scientists were joined by interested
members of the observatory staff and a film crew from the BBC,
which traveled halfway around the globe just to witness the
event from Palomar.
The telescope and its observing system performed flawlessly,
yet as the impact time came and then passed there was no obvious
sign of the impact. A live video feed from the control room
at NASA’s Ames Research Center confirmed that the impact
had occurred as scheduled. Other observatories soon began to
confirm that nothing was seen.
First images from the probe and the observatories monitoring
the event were shown off at NASA’s 7 a.m. press briefing.
Although the impact was not observed, it was obvious at that
time that Palomar’s images were the sharpest from any
telescope that observed the event.
* * *
Scott Kardel is the public information officer for Palomar Observatory.
