back to article Peregrine bows out with a bang as SLIM aims for Moon's rocky runway

As the Astrobotic Peregrine spacecraft prepares for its final descent into the Earth's atmosphere, another lunar mission, the Japanese Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM), is gearing up for a soft landing on the Moon's surface. For Peregrine Mission One, the spacecraft's demise will bring an end to the operation, which …

  1. Scott 26

    If you are going to splash down near-ish to somewhere could you please quote ETAs in local time?

    (Plus I hope there are no cruise ships in the area - that's prime cruising territory)

    1. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

      I don't think it's expected to reach the surface, but rather to burn up on re-entry.

    2. Spherical Cow Silver badge

      "(Plus I hope there are no cruise ships in the area - that's prime cruising territory)"

      Depends which part of the South Pacific. The aussie-wards half is prime cruising territory, however the other half is pretty much empty and is home to Point Nemo (the place on the planet furthest from any land) which is also the site for the Spacecraft Cemetery (where I'd guess they are probably sending this spacecraft).

    3. 42656e4d203239 Silver badge
      Stop

      >>please quote ETAs in local time?

      Absolutely the wrong thing to do.

      UTC was invented, at least partly, so everyone would know what the time IS and make it easy1 to convert to what that time is called locally.

      If times are qoted in UTC it is trivial for any2 human to convert to local.

      ISO 8601 provides a standard way of dealing with date/time; I don't know why people fail to use it. The standard handles the offset from UTC reasonably well.

      1 for particular values of easy

      2 capable of knowing their own time zone

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        UTC

        If times are qoted in UTC it is trivial for any human to convert to local.

        Haha. Apart from those who voted for brexit. They wouldn't know what a UTC was if it came up to them singing 'I'm as easy to understand as the metric system.'

        And while I know I'll be downvoted, this is in part a serious comment because I bet few of these folks have any idea what it means.

        1. Jan 0

          Re: UTC

          That's why we should've kept on calling it GMT.

        2. Ken Shabby Bronze badge

          Re: UTC

          Simple innit, with one you get sunburnt and the other radiation sickness, but not necessarily at the same time.

  2. elip

    No Elon/Space X involved, so no Snark?

    Where's the snark I keep hearing about?

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