Okay, folks, remember when I told you we’d have an update on the pictures taken of the moon’s surface after the LCROSS slammed into it?  Well, we’ve finally got that update, and man, what a doozy.  They found WATER.

Water, on the moon.  Well, more specifically ICE, but all ice is is just solidified water.  And the Goodrich SWIR, described by NASA as being “near infrared”, was the camera along for the ride that caught the pictures of what may well be the twenty first century’s first great scientific discovery.

For years we’d all wondered what was up there.  We’d even BEEN there, a couple times, but now, thanks to these cameras, we finally have at least a little better understanding of just what’s on our moon, anyway.  The question of the day, of course, is what will become of this discovery?  Parceled out among the nations?  Used as hydrogen fuel for a mission to Mars?  Absolutely nothing?  Who knows?

But we at least know what’s there, thanks to two SWIR cameras.