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fuckyeahspace:

The LCROSS mission is now in the final countdown. At 7:31 a.m. EDT (4:30 PDT), in what will truly be one of the most badass things to happen in forever, the LCROSS satellite will plummet to the Moon in two separate collisions, directly into the permanently-shadowed crater Cabeus.

There are a number of ways you can see this if you still haven’t made plans to attend one of the many public events:

1. If you’re West of the Mississippi, you can see it with a telescope. NASA recommends it be 10-14 inches with a 4-8mm eyepiece; definitely not your everyday run-of-the-mill telescope. You will NOT be able to see this with binoculars, unless you’re superhuman.
2. The best bet is to watch on NASA TV, which will have commentary and live animations and live feed from the part satellite that will remain in orbit. The broadcast will begin 1 hour, 15 minutes prior to impact.
3. You can also watch live telescope feeds for free on the SLOOH website, which is normally a paid service. As I understand it, the impact will be broadcast from a feed somewhere on their website.
4. If none of those options appeal to you, check your favorite cable news channel (or even one you don’t like) and see if you hear anything about live coverage.

I’ll spare you screencaps (maybe) and post some high-res shots from Hubble as soon as I get them. I’m going to set the @LCROSS_NASA twitter feed to post here automatically WTF, not working. Any other questions you have regarding the mission are probably answered here on NASA.gov. Happy viewing!

Must be an awesome time to be a NASA scientist. These people have been the biggest nerds on the planet for 51 years. They’re the ones tasked with getting humanity from where it is now to where it is in Star Trek. And as the leaders of this incomprehensibly momentous endeavor, they’ve had to hold themselves with a certain degree of scientific pomp and severity the entire time.

But if I were a NASA engineer and my supervisor interrupted my seventh read-through of the Foundation series to tell me that our next stage of lunar inquiry involved blasting the surface apart with space missiles? I’d be trying to carve my name into the moon with explosions before he even finished the sentence.