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YM COLUMN ARCHIVE

June 17, 2009

KAGUYA is back home to Moon

The Lunar explorer KAGUYA that had gathered attention from all over the world since its launch on September 14, 2007 was maneuvered to drop on the lunar location at 65.5 degrees south latitude and 80.4 degrees east longitude at 3:25am on June 11, 2009 (JST) after having completed its Moon observation mission of nominal operations for about ten months followed by an extended operational phase for about seven and a half months. In association with “Princess Kaguya” I would rather like to say, “KAGUYA returned to moon” but when I visited Shimane University the other day, a girl student named Ms. Yamamoto said, “Since KAGUYA was born on earth, it’s wrong to say ‘return to moon’”. She’s logically right but I hoped we could meet somewhere halfway emotionally (laugh), on which I wanted to talk more with her but I was very much sorry that I couldn’t because of my train departure time nearing.

As the KAGUYA’s impact location was in the shaded area of the Moon, I expected there might be a considerable number of people in the world who could witness the impact flash generated from hitting the Moon, but unfortunately in Japan to our regrets, it was cloudy all over the country at the impact time. From the information obtained so far, it is reported that Anglo-Australian Observatory in Australia clearly captured the flashlight at the impact moment by IRIS2 (infrared camera and spectrograph). (Please click the URL below.)

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n0906/10kaguya/impactfull.jpg

The impact location is near the crater called “Gill L”, of which further information can be obtained from JAXA’s website that illustrates the nearby image around the impact site taken by a terrain camera of KAGUYA accompanied with the data observed by KAGUYA’s laser altimeter on which is overlapped the drop spot. You can also see the scene of staffs in the control room at the moment of impact. (Please click the URL below.)

http://www.jaxa.jp/press/2009/06/20090611_kaguya_j.html

Chinese lunar explorer “Chang’e 1” completed its mission in March this year to have fallen down on the lunar surface. Okina, one of the two sub satellites of KAGUYA, had been down earlier. The other sub satellite Ouna, still circulating though, has already completed its observation operation, which will further continue necessary operation for data calibration for a while, and then will be completely terminated of its operations. Chandrayaan-1 of India is still carrying on its observations. And soon will be launched America’s LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter).

I welcome your opinions on this column to the following E-mail address.
matogawa@planetary.or.jp

(Translated by The Planetary Society of Japan)