U Of L To Host Moon Satellite Crash Viewing

This Friday, NASA will crash a satellite into the moon and the University of Louisville will host a live viewing of the collision."They'll have the live feed from the satellite," says Rauch Planetarium director Rachel Connolly. "You'll be able to watch it and the debris that comes out of the impact. You can watch it live and it's going to be pretty impressive. I mean, how many times do you actually get to see somebody make a crater on the moon?"The satellite will create a 30-mile-wide crater and the resulting dust cloud will be scanned with a spectrometer for signs of water.Connolly says the experiment results could have an impact on future lunar exploration."If you ever want to establish any sort of a permanent base on the moon, it really helps that you have water already there that you can utilize, because water's very heavy," she says.The impact is at 7:30 AM. The viewing party is free and begins at 7 in the planetarium.