Farewell to a moon probe...
When a piece of science kit orbiting our lunar pal comes to the end of its life, what do you do?
You could just let it die, but Japan has other ideas and has put its Kaguya probe on a kamikaze dive that will reach its destination 6pm GMT today.
This is a way of squeezing the last ounce of science out of the mission that began in February.
By crashing the probe into the moon, scientists will be analyzing the stuff thrown up by the impact.
They're expecting to see a red flash and because Kaguya will come to an end in a shaded part of the moon, it's possible the bang may be observable from Earth through a large enough telescope.
It's a noble end for craft and as a tribute here's some of the spectacular shot taken during the mission, including a fantastic Earthset. Click on the pix for a better view.
Weird Science Factoid: A moth has no stomach. Cuts down on food bills...
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Authors
Daniel Smith - a long time ago, in a galaxy far away just north of Watford, Daniel fancied himself as a scientist but turned out to be the worst scientist since that bloke who mapped out all those canals on Mars that turned out to be scratches on his telescope's lens. Luckily, he is now not working on the Large Hadron Collider inadvertently creating a black hole that would swallow the world but is safely behind a desk writing this blog, bringing you the fantastical underbelly of nature... weird science.
