Sometime next year, NASA will launch a mission which will literally smash open some of the secrets our lunar satellite has been holding for millions of years. By crashing the booster stage of the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) onto the moon's surface, researchers can deduce whether signs of lunar water can be found from the debris of the ensuing blast.

The team headed by LCROSS principal investigator, Anthony Colaprete, is currently searching for the best impact sites inside various shadowed craters which may contain a good amount of frozen water. The most important factor in choosing the site is its productivity from an ejecta standpoint.

Colaprete explains that the ejected material must reach high enough to hit the sunlight for scientists to observe any expected reaction that may occur from the ensuing impact. One of the best sites so far is a 17 kilometer wide unnamed crater just west of Peary crater, near the moon's north pole.

The chosen site must also be visible from Earth, as hundreds of amateur and professional astronomers will be watching the event. The impact itself will be timed when the moon is high in the night sky in Hawaii. While the ejected debris from the impact will be invisible to the naked eye, it can easily be picked up from even the simplest of barnyard telescopes during this time.

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