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NEBULA: NASA'S STRATEGIC CL OUD

deposited on the concrete floor of Microsoft’s Chicago cloud
data center.
Nebula has already been used in one public engagement
project. The Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite
(LCROSS) was launched by NASA on June 18, 2009, to orbit
the moon and try to detect water in the form of ice in its polar

regions or shadowed craters. On October 9, the upper stage
of the Centaur rocket that launched LCROSS was intention-
ally crashed into a crater in the south polar region of the
moon to see whether LCROSS instruments would detect any
water vapor or particles in the ejecta plume created by the
crash. The experiment was meant to gain visibility into one of
the moon’s permanently darkened spots that might hold

more ice than previously known.
NASA published the 4:30 a.m. time and date of the crash
and encouraged amateur astronomers to focus cameras and
video recorders on the planned site to collect as much infor-
mation on the plume as possible. On a Web site dubbed “Citi-
zen Science,” it urged owners of 10- to 12-inch telescopes to
train their instruments on the south polar region of the moon
and attempt to capture spectrographs, still images, and video
of the Centaur impact.

“The LCROSS Mission will actively solicit images of the
impact from the public. These images will provide a valuable
addition to the archive of data chronicling the impact and its
aftermath. This site will include a gallery of images received
from both the public and professional communities,” said
NASA’s Web site devoted to the mission at http://lcross.arc
.nasa.gov/observation.htm.

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