Lost lunar module from the Apollo 10 mission may FINALLY have been found

Fifty years after it was jettisoned into space, scientists believe they may have located the last remaining lunar module from the Apollo missions.

Apollo 10 launched in May 1969 as what would be, essentially, a dress rehearsal for the first-ever moon landing.

Following its successful run, during which the ‘Snoopy’ lunar module brought crew within roughly 50,000 feet of the moon’s surface, astronauts re-docked with the ‘Charlie Brown’ command module and Snoopy was never seen again.

Now, after a meticulous search through terabytes of optical data, a team led by astronomer Nick Howes says it's ’98 percent convinced’ they've pinpointed the lost module in what would be a 235 million-to-one discovery.

Howes, a fellow at the Royal Astronomical Society, detailed the findings during a conference at the Cheltenham Science Festival in the UK this weekend.

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Fifty years after it was jettisoned into space, scientists believe they may have located the last remaining lunar module from the Apollo missions. Apollo 10 (ascent state shown) launched in May 1969 as what would be, essentially, a dress rehearsal for the first-ever moon landing

Fifty years after it was jettisoned into space, scientists believe they may have located the last remaining lunar module from the Apollo missions. Apollo 10 (ascent state shown) launched in May 1969 as what would be, essentially, a dress rehearsal for the first-ever moon landing

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE LUNAR MODULES?

The Apollo missions relied on three-part spacecraft to get crew safely to the moon and back.

This consisted of the command module, the service module, and the lunar module.

After crew completed their missions near or on the moon and re-docked to the command module – the only component capable of surviving re-entry to Earth – the lunar modules’ ascent stages were destroyed. 

These parts were either purposefully crashed into the moon, or allowed to burn up in Earth’s atmosphere.

Apollo 10's 'Snoopy' became the only lunar module to survive after it was jettisoned into space and ended up in orbit around the sun. 

It's since spent the last 50 years floating through space. 

Though scientists now say they've located it with about 98% certainty, there's no knowing for sure until more detailed observations are made. 

Scientists have been searching for Snoopy since 2011, when Howes first kick-started the effort to find the lost module, the researcher noted on Twitter after the presentation.

The first observation is thought to have been made by a team at the Mt. Lemmon Sky Center Observatory, and additional data from numerous facilities appear to support it.

But, we may never really know for sure.

‘Until someone gets really close to it and gets a detailed radar profile, we can’t be sure,’ Howes told the audience at Cheltenham Science Festival, according to SkyNews.

‘We’ve got to wait quite a few years for it to come back, but once it does come back the idea is that we are going to get a really detailed picture of it,’ he said.

‘It would be a really fantastic achievement for science.’

Tracking down Snoopy and retrieving it would be a monumental effort, though it could be possible using a combination of Cubesats and advanced machinery such as that used by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, the

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