2012 has been a hugely successful and world changing year for NASA. Not only has the astronomy giant successfully landed the Mars Rover “Curiosity” on the red planet to successfully send back, for the first time, some of the most detailed and awe-inspiring images of “the red planet” ever seen, but they have also been attempting to dismiss the fictional Dec. 21, 2012, doomsday theory. From March 2012 to May 2012, NASA also showcased another successful project: two space craft, called “Ebb” and “Flow,” hovered above the surface of the moon, mapping it with images beamed back to earth.
Despite being a successful mission, the two spacecraft have ventured too far into the moon’s gravitational pull and will be forced to make a crash landing. The crash will take place on the moon on Monday, Dec. 17, 2012, at approximately 5:28 EST, according to a report from “The Guardian” in the United Kingdom. A similar report from “Boston Science Department” states that the ships will crash into the surface of the moon near its north pole near the “Goldshmidt Crater” at almost 4,000 miles per hour and around 20 seconds apart.
The images beamed back by the two spacecraft are timeless and they have created countless amounts of data that will be analyzed for years to come, as NASA and scientists from all over the world attempt to uncover the secrets of the earth’s moon. According to the two aforementioned reports, early data suggests that the moon had been separated into red and blue areas; red being “unexpectedly large areas of mass” and blue being “areas of missing mass.”
Scientifically, this year has been world changing. Not only has NASA beamed back evidence of water and ice on Mars as well as successfully showcasing perfect images of the surface of “the red planet”, but they have also successfully ventured one step closer to uncovering the countless mysteries and secrets of the universe and the planets and moons that make up the earth’s galaxy and beyond. From discovering new planets, capturing world changing images and even proving the Mayan calendar doomsday theory wrong, 2012 has certainly been huge for NASA and the entire scientific community.
