A huge Centaur upper stage rocket and its shepherding spacecraft, together known as the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS), will intentionally crash into a crater at the south pole of the moon at approximately 6:30 a.m. Friday, Oct. 9.

Lake Afton Public Observatory will be open for the event, which NASA has stated will result in a huge debris plume that should be visible to amateur astronomers.

The observatory will open its doors at 5:45 a.m. Oct. 9 to catch a glimpse of the debris plume. LAPO’s 16-inch telescope will be pointed at the south pole of the moon, allowing visitors to see. The plume should be visible for up to 12 minutes.

Lake Afton Public Observatory is operated by the Fairmount Center for Science and Mathematics Education, a part of the Fairmount College of Liberal Arts and Science at Wichita State University.

Background

On June 18, an Atlas V rocket was successfully launched from Cape Canaveral with two spacecraft on board. One of them was the LCROSS, which consists of a Centaur rocket booster and its shepherding spacecraft. Its mission is to search for evidence of water on the moon, which it will do by crashing the rocket into the dark recesses of a permanently shadowed crater at the south pole.

The spacecraft will then gather and stream back data to mission control as it flies through the debris thrown up by the rocket crash and then it too will impact the crater floor, causing another smaller debris plume.