On Jun 11, 7:01*pm, Pat Flannery wrote:
Rick Jones wrote:
Modulo propellant to maintain the orbit, my understanding from the
peanut gallery is that (most) lunar orbits are not terribly stable and
the probe is going to impact the Moon at some point. *At least this
way they had some control over when and where to enable some final
data.

Not to mention that they could target it just beyond the the illuminated
area of the Moon and know right where to look for the flash. Considering
that it hit at a very flat angle, it should have left a interesting
impact feature to be photographed by future missions.

Pat

That substantial feature should be easily seen by amateur astronomy
wizards.

~ BG