A long-vanished Soviet probe and a laser could overturn old theories about the Moon

[The Straight Story]

A long-vanished Soviet probe and a laser could overturn old theories about the Moon

A long-vanished Soviet probe and a laser could overturn old theories about the MoonWhat do you get when you combine the Moon, a recently rediscovered forty-year-old Soviet probe, and a laser? The most accurate lunar measurements ever made - and, just for the hell of it, a way to prove Einstein right...or wrong.

Although it got a bit lost in the hoopla of the greatest achievement in the history of human exploration - Apollo 11 to its friends - the Lunokhod 1 probe was one of the greatest successes of the Soviet space program. Carried to the Moon by the Luna 17 rocket in 1970, Lunokhod 1 (which means "Moonwalker") was the first remote-controlled robot put on the surface of another celestial body. The rover traveled seven miles across the lunar surface during its eleven months of operation, sending back tons of TV images and high-resolution pictures during its tour.

When contact with Lunokhod 1 was lost, so was its location, and it remained missing for forty years until NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter happened to spot it in one of its images of the lunar surface. This opened up the possibility of reestablishing contact with the old rover using the laser retroreflector placed on Lunokhod 1. Astronomer Tom Murphy of the University of California San Diego used the telescope at the Apache Point Observatory in New Mexico to send laser light pulses to the rover's lunar coordinates.

They instantly got two thousand photons sent back - a shockingly clear reply for a rover so old and distant. It's so strong that they can even send and receive signals during lunar daylight, previously thought to be impossible. Indeed, the strength of the return signal dwarfs those of the four other lunar reflectors already in use: those left by three Apollo missions and another on Lunokhod 2, a successor mission sent to the Moon in 1973.

http://io9.com/5557780/a-long+vanished-soviet-probe-and-a-laser-overturn-old-theories-about-the-moon

[arcane1]

1. It's so cute!! :)

[Old Troop]

2. That's amazing and a little scary. How have the batteries kept a charge

after 40 years?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

3. They haven't.

It's not doing anything.

[Statistical]

4. It has no power source.

It is a special type of mirror that whatever angle light hits it it will reflect back 180 degrees.

Thus if you shine a laser from Earth the beam will reflect back to the point of origin on earth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retroreflector

The "magic" of a retroreflector is that you don't need to know angle that light will strike the retroreflector.

[eppur_se_muova]

5. ... or line up the reflector itself, either. nt

[Old Troop]

6. How did it generate the picture stream?

[XOKCowboy]

8. Not photos. Photons..

Got by me on the first reading also.

[The Straight Story]

9. So they are sending Photon Torpedos towards us? Nuke the moon, more war funding

Give it time, some tea bagger will think that :)

[A HERETIC I AM]

7. What they don't say is those 7 miles of travel....

Spell out in giant letters;

THE MOON SUCKS!

I HATE IT HERE!

EVERYTHING IS FUCKING GRAYER THAN KAZAKHSTAN.

OH LOOK! MORE FUCKING ROCKS AND SAND!

I FOUND FUCKING WATER AND I'M KEEPING IT TO MYSELF.