Gathering information about Earth’s closest celestial neighbor, the Moon, has been an ongoing science project for many researchers. The first lunar rover from the erstwhile Soviet Union, the Lunokhod I was placed on the moon in the early 1070s. The scientists however lost contact with the lunar rover a few months after it landed on the moon.

In 2010 NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Obiter or LRO found the Lunokhod I using high resolution cameras. When pulses of laser hit the vehicle it sent back a strong signal using its retroreflector.  The 2.3 meter long rover looks more like a bathtub on wheels but is in fact a powerful machine which can help in providing valuable data on the moon.

Scientists at the University of California at San Diego are being led by Tom Murphy to collect information from old lunar rovers including Lunkhod II, and the other rovers left behind on the moon by the three Apollo missions. As of now all five lunar rovers are reflecting the laser beams back to earth. The telescope at Apache Point Observatory in New Mexico is capturing this.

The experiment allows us to calculate the distance between the earth and the moon precisely down to the last millimeter. Did the people who made the moon rovers ever think that they could be put to this use? Just shows you how one science project can often blend into another.