On September 3, the SMART-1 satellite will fall to the Moon

Whether professional or amateur, all astronomers will be invited by the European Space Agency (ESA) to observe the fall of the SMART-1 probe into the lunar surface.

SMART-1 will end the journey on Lake Excellence (Photo: br-online.de)

The collision will take place on September 3 at 5:41 GMT or 03636 GMT, a time of uncertainty due to surprises that may occur on the Moon's surface.

SMART-1 will end the journey on Lake Excellence, a surrounding mountain mountain volcano located in the southern area of ​​the visible surface of the Moon.

According to ESA, with the speed approaching the Moon is 2km / sec (ie 7,200km / hour), the probe satellite will create a small collision with a diameter of 3 to 10m.

Large observatories such as the VLBI network (Very Long Baseline Interferometry), SALT (South African Large Telescope), or different telescopes located in European, Japanese or Hawaii regions will direct lenses and antenna to the Moon on September 3. However, any images of collisions and firing materials attracted ESA's interest.

SMART-1 was launched in September 2003 by an Ariane-5 rocket. Instead of flying straight to the Moon, this probe went up spiraling, taking a 100 million km journey with only 60 liters of fuel thanks to an ion engine.

Currently, SMART-1 is above the lunar surface with a distance of less than 300 km after spending 16 months observing on a geostationary orbit at an altitude of 300 to 3,000 km.

SMART-1 was launched in September 2003 by an Ariane-5 rocket
(Photo: nmm.ac.uk)

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