Moon Hammer

thumb|300px|right|Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite mission

Halloween Plans
Dr. Ekantika Vivek was on the phone with her son, Mahit. They were discussing Halloween costumes, but she was watching telemetry from the LCROSS mission. She had called home to make sure her son would be watching the lunar impacts, but he was more interested in plans for Halloween, having been invited by a friend to a party. She said, "You know this is a busy time for me. Why not just use your costume from last year?"

Mahit moaned, "That was a baby costume."

Ekantika asked, "It's not cool enough for you now?"

Mahit replied, "Mom, there are going to be girls at the party."

Ekantika was well aware of that fact, having already spoken to the mother of Mahit's friend who was hosting the party. "I'm just not going to have time to deal with this. As soon as the impacts take place I'll be analyzing the data...20 hours a day for weeks. Get your father to take you shopping for a new costume."

"But Mom, he does not know where to go to get a costume."

Ekantika wondered just when her name had changed to "But Mom". She commented, "The problem is that neither of you know anything about shopping. This is a good time to start learning. I'm sure if you two put your heads together you can figure out where to buy a costume."

Manit sighed. "Fine. Good luck with the Moon thing." He cut the connection.

Impact
Ekantika turned off the ringer of her phone, set it to vibrate, and shook her head while marveling at the fact that when she was her son's age she had been enthralled by the idea of sending spacecraft to the Moon. She muttered, "I guess looking for water on the Moon can't compete with Death Stars and light sabers."

Ekantika shared an office with Dr. Pablo Monteiro. Pablo was monitoring cloud coverage conditions at the Earth telescopes that would be trying to capture images of the LCROSS impacts on the Moon. A third of the telescopes were apparently going to be blocked by clouds. At the edge of his consciousness he heard Ekantika mutter. Without looking away from his computer screen he asked, "What's that?"

"Oh, nothing. I should not have bothered calling. My son has no interest in our work."

Pablo nodded and finally tore his eyes away from the screen. "Ten seconds to impact."

The two scientists watched the arrival of the data for the two closely spaced impacts. After a brief celebration they got down to the business analyzing the data. An hour after the impacts they were deep into the spectroscopic details that were involved in their attempt to show that water ice existed on the lunar surface. Finally they were interrupted by Ekantika's phone. She picked up, "Hello?"

It was Ekantika's husband, Lahar. "Hi, Eka! We were just heading out to look for a Halloween costume, but now Mahit won't let me tear him away from his computer."

"Hello, Lahar." Ekantika asked, "Is he doing homework or playing games?"

Lahar explained, "It's this crazy LCROSS stuff. It's not just on the internet, all the news networks are covering it, too."

Ekantika wondered what was "crazy". As far as shoe could tell from the data, the impacts had gone as planed. Ekantika was surprised to hear that her son had paid attention to the mission after all. She finally stopped trying to continue performing data analysis and asked, "What are they calling 'crazy' on TV?"

Now Pablo looked up from his work with a puzzled expression. He opened up a new browser window and did a news search for "LCROSS".

While Pablo read the news, Lahar explained to his wife that there were images that seemed to show bodies near the second impact site, that of the ESPA.

Ekantika asked in disbelief, "Bodies? On the moon?" An image of the face on Mars flashed into her mind.

Pablo had an image of the bodies on his computer screen. He signaled to Ekantika, "Come look at this." Ekantika got up from her desk and walked around to look. Pablo said, "It is just at the edge of the required resolution, but ya, It sorta looks like three bodies. This one with the limbs spread is particularly interesting."

Ekantika complained, "Look at the shadows. This is just like the face on Cydonia."

Pablo pointed to the 'before' image. "Except these three features were not there before the ESPA impact."

"So it is debris from the impact."

Lahar was still on the phone. He said, "Sounds like you know less than the news networks."

Ekantika explained, "Pablo and I have been sitting here doing the scientific data analysis. I'll see what the rest of the project team has to say about these images. Catch you later." She broke the connection with her husband and picked up the phone on her desk.

It took a minute, but she finally got someone in mission control to pick up. "This is Dr. Vivek." She asked, "What is going on with these images of bodies?" She could here chaotic noise and overlapping conversations in the control room.

"We should have a second round of images soon, but so far there are two mysteries. This shapes that the press is calling bodies and there is also a nearby infrared source that appeared."

Ekantika asked, "You mean the ESPA impact site? It should be hot."

"No, we see the impact site, but there is another infrared source near the 'bodies'. Wait, a new image is coming in. Blank. This one is blank."

"Blank?"

"Ya, the three 'bodies' are gone. This looks like the pre-impact image."

Ekantika shrugged and said, "Okay, thanks for the info." She turned to Pablo and explained that the "bodies" were no longer visible in a more recent image. "Sounds some kind of off gas artifact that is now dissipated. This will keep the conspiracy mongers happy for years."

The new "blank" image was now on the internet. Pablo asked, "What was that about an infrared source?"

"I'm guessing a splashed fragment from the main impact point." Ekantika sat back down and tried to get back to her data analysis. "Well, this is preliminary, but it is looking good for water ice."

Pablo closed out the browser window for the new and nodded, "I agree." They got back to their work and again the only sound in the office was the clatter of keys being struck.