Astronomy Issues of Interest (continued):
- Orionids Metor Shower -- The Orionid meteor shower (October 15 - October 29, 2009) is the second of two showers that occur each year as a result of Earth passing through dust released by Halley's Comet, with the first being the Eta Aquarids. The point from where the Orionid meteors appear to radiate is located within the constellation Orion.
- Water on the Moon -- NASA finds water at the polar reagons of the moon. NASA's Moon Mineralogy Mapper, or M3, instrument reported the observations. M3 was carried into space on Oct. 22, 2008, aboard the Indian Space Research Organization's Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft. Data from the Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer, or VIMS, on NASA's Cassini spacecraft, and the High-Resolution Infrared Imaging Spectrometer on NASA's Epoxi spacecraft contributed to confirmation of the finding. The spacecraft imaging spectrometers made it possible to map lunar water more effectively than ever before.
NASA will also conduct the LCROSS lunar impact mission on October 8 and/or 9, 2009. It will search for ice in the Cabeus A crater near the moon's south pole. A set of complete background information can be found at the NASA LCROSS site.
