Crashing Saturn Stages Into Moon

From Apollo 13 onward, NASA deliberately steered the Saturn V rocket’s third stage into the Moon instead of sending it into heliocentric orbit as it had done on earlier missions. Engineers timed these impacts near seismometers left on the lunar surface so the resulting moonquakes would generate clear seismic signals. By analyzing how those shock waves traveled through the Moon, scientists learned more about its internal structure and composition.

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