Posted by Pinky.

I just read some articles about the SMART-1 research satellite at the European Space Agency's website. It's been orbiting the moon for the past three years or so, carefully mapping the moon's surface, testing its solar powered thruster, and other scientific-y stuff like that. Anyway, the mission came to an end four days ago, on September 3rd, when the satellite was deliberately crashed into the surface of the moon. Is that for real? Doesn't that suck for the moon? I mean, I don't know if you've ever looked at close-up photographs of the moon's surface, but it's real pretty up there. And now there's about 630 pounds of space garbage littering the surface of the moon that wasn't there before. How long's it going to be just sitting there, looking all messy, before someone goes there to tidy up?

I get pretty annoyed whenever I see someone toss a cigarette out a car window, like the Earth is their own personal trash can. To me this is just a bigger, more moon-oriented example of the same idea. According to the European Space Agency, "SMART-1 ended its journey in the Lake of Excellence region, in the point situated at 34.4° South latitude and 46.2° West longitude." Okay guys - apparently you know exactly where you crashed it - now go clean it up!

~p.

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Posted by Bunny: That's moon vandalism.