Last night was "International Observe the Moon Night," apparently, and NASA celebrated by shooting our favorite satellite with lasers. Naturally!
Don't worry, the lasers weren't the explodey kind, they were the observey kind. The lasers, fired from the Goddard Space Flight Center's Laser Ranging Facility in Greenbelt, Maryland, are used to track the location of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter as it orbits the moon. All NASA has to do is fire those lasers 28 times a second and they're able to pinpoint where the SUV-sized satellite is as it moves at 3,600 MPH over 250,000 miles away. Pretty awesome.
Space.com via io9
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