Word: lunik
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...Lunik II undoubtedly blasted a crater, which Kuiper estimates as about 100 ft. in diameter with walls 10 ft. high. If such a crater happened to be in a smooth place, it should be detectable by a powerful telescope, under ideal conditions, as a faint bright spot. If the Lunik crater were inside a big crater or in a jumble of craters, it would probably not be visible...
There were skeptics who questioned whether Lunik got to the moon at all. Since the only tangible evidence of a hit was the sudden stopping of its radio signals, the Russians might have set the signals to turn off automatically at a predetermined time while Lunik II soared on past the moon (as Lunik...
...Crater. The Russians themselves do not claim to know precisely where the Lunik landed. Astronomers from the Ukraine's Kharkov Observatory, who watched and photographed the moon at the moment of impact from a high-flying airplane, think they saw 'a light effect" at the right instant. U.S. astronomers doubt it. Moon Expert Gerard Kuiper of the University of Chicago thinks that no flash of impact would have been visible against the moon's sunlit surface. He questions a Hungarian report of seeing a long-lasting dust cloud on the moon. Since the moon has virtually...
British radio astronomers do not think this deception was possible. With the giant Jodrell Bank radio telescope, they measured Lunik II's slowly decreasing speed as it climbed through the earth's gravitational field. Then they watched it speed up about 50% as the moon's modest gravity took control. Mathematical analysis showed that Lunik II followed the proper curve to crash near the center of the lunar disk...
Target: Tranquillity. The Russians gave precise information about Lunik's radios, which were transmitting on seven different frequencies. Signals were received briefly in San Francisco and in Japan, then faded out as moon and Lunik disappeared behind the earth. By this time the Russians had time to line up their figures. They announced officially that Lunik II would reach the moon four minutes ahead of schedule: at 5:01 E.D.T. They also predicted boldly that it would hit in the region between the Sea of Tranquillity, the Sea of Serenity and the Sea of Vapors. The way to tell...