Nasa Moon bombing: LCROSS mission crashes into Moon

The Nasa LCROSS mission to discover how much water is on the Moon has crashed into the surface of the satellite but left millions who watched the expected spectacle live disappointed.

A plume of dust and rock that was predicted to reach up to six miles high was forecast, but in the end those watching the crash on televisions or on the internet saw little evidence of the impact.

However, Nasa did confirm that at 12.31pm British time an empty rocket plunged into the Moon's south pole at 1.6 miles per second. A probe followed close behind to catch debris kicked up by the impact, before crashing into the surface itself four minutes later.

Instruments on the probe have been designed to scour the impact for evidence of water or ice spraying up.

It is hoped that the readings taken will confirm the presence of enough water necessary to supply future visits by astronauts.

Scientists hope that the mission will be able to confirm the theory that water — a key resource if people are going to go back to the Moon — is hidden below the barren moonscape.

The impact site was a 60-mile-wide hole, which lies just a short distance from the Shackleton crater – the proposed location for Nasa's manned lunar base, which it hopes to have completed by 2024.

Experts insisted, however, that the lack of the expected fireworks from the crash did not mean that the mission was a failure.

Dr Vincent Eke, from the University of Durham, which helped Nasa pick the spot for the collision, said: "If it turns out to be as dull as it looked, I'd imagine the soil just didn't respond as was hoped to being hit."

"It might mean we don't get sufficient data, which would be a shame."

Dr Robert Massey, from the Royal Astronomical Society, said: “We shouldn’t think if it as some kind of failure because if (the probe) got there and analysed the material than that is what it is supposed to do.”

Discovering a potential water supply has obvious benefits for that scheme, not least providing astronauts with a potential reservoir that they can tap into rather than rely on shipments from Earth.

Just a couple of weeks ago, the Indian Chandrayaan satellite appeared to confirm the existence of water in the region – subsequently confirmed by data from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, the vessel that LCROSS hitched a ride into space alongside.

The Cabeus south polar region was identified as a site with high concentrations of hydrogen – a key component of water.

It is believed water ice could lie at the bottom of dark craters at the Moon's poles, where temperatures are lower than minus 170C.

Dr Eke led a study of data from Nasa's 1998 Lunar Prospector mission which showed that hydrogen was concentrated in permanently shaded craters at the Moon's polar regions.

If the hydrogen really is a sign of ice, it implies that the craters could hold a total of 200,000 million litres of water.

Last month new findings from three spacecraft, including India's Chandrayaan-1 probe, showed that small amounts of water might be chemically bound up with the Moon's soil.