LRO Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Mission.

[3488]

Re: LRO/LCROSS Mission

Hi Woggles,

What Wayne said is was what meant.

The Lunokhods closed their lids during the lunar night to keep the internal electronics 'warm'. On the lunar equator at sunrise, the surface temperature is approx 104 Kelvin / Minus 167 Celsius, & that's on the moon's equator!!!!!! In early lunar afternoon (approx 8 days after sunrise), the surface temperature can climb to approx 393 Kelvin / 120 Celsius.

The Moon has the greatest extreme of diurnal surface temperatures on a major solar system body after Mercury!!!!!!!

At higher latitudes, it gets even colder by dawn, not because the nights are longer, but because the surface does not warm up quite so much during the two week long lunar daytime.

Andrew Brown.

 

[3488]

Re: LRO/LCROSS Mission

Floor of 1.2 KM wide crater in Mare Frigoris. LRO LROC NAC.

Enlarged sharpened crop of a small section. Large boulder.

Enlarged crop of a collection of boulders on SW floor.

Enlarged crop. A few large boulders.

Andrew Brown.

 

[nimbus]

Re: LRO/LCROSS Mission

So that boulder in the first crop is about 50m large?

 

[3488]

Re: LRO/LCROSS Mission

Hi nimbus,

Yes I think 50 metres is approximately right. It was difficult to guage as it is the floor of a 1.2 KM wide crater. Not knowing how wide the rim is outside of the frame, makes it more difficult, but yes I think 50 metres for that boulder is about right.

Quite a large lump of rock sitting there.

Andrew Brown.

 

[3488]

Re: LRO/LCROSS Mission

550 metre wide area in central Mare Orientale with a 125 metre long crater chain.

125 metre long crater chain in Mare Orientale, enlarged sharpened crop.

Andrew Brown.

 

[3488]

Re: LRO/LCROSS Mission

800 metre wide section of floor of Apollo Basin on lunar farside.

Looks like two overlapping areas of lava plains, much like that seen on the planet Mercury from Mariner 10 & MESSENGER. The 538 KM wide Apollo Basin on the far side of the moon in the southern hemisphere is completely surrounded by highland terrain.

The overlapping lava plains seen widely on Mercury are very rare on the Moon, but this is one such example.

Enlarged sharpened crop of overlap. Boulders can be seen, infront of the overlap. perhaps the the crust on the plain had hardened & but was still fluid underneath pushing forward??

Andrew Brown.

 

[aphh]

Re: LRO/LCROSS Mission

The place eagerly awaits us to return and bring life there.

 

[3488]

Re: LRO/LCROSS Mission

Hortensius Dome Phi.

Interesting feature, almost certainly one of a cluster of lunar volcanoes within the Hortensius Domes complex.

A 1,220 metre wide area showing the summit caldera of Hortensius Dome Phi.

A crop of the SW portion at actual size.

Enlarged, sharpened crop of about 500 metres of the caldera floor.

Enlarged, sharpened crop of about 610 metre section of western rim of caldera.

Context mosaic from Lunar Orbiter 4.

All of the Hortensius domes are clearly visible as is the crater Hortensius itself (that gives it's name to this area) . Hortensius Crater is 14 KM wide & is 2,860 metres deep.

Andrew Brown.

 

[3488]

Re: LRO/LCROSS Mission

The place eagerly awaits us to return and bring life there.

Hi aphh, humans will return for sure, just dunno when. Like the stuff coming from this mission though, we are going to learn so much & that information will be imperative for an eventual human return.

Andrew Brown.

 

[3488]

Re: LRO/LCROSS Mission

Rima Prinz Lava Channel.

LRO images a short section, the image below being 1.46 KM across.

This section meanders around a massif (mountain) in the Prinz-Harbinger region on the Moon.

Enlarged, sharpened crop of the central 700 metres.

Enlarged, sharpened crop of a 250 metre wide section with boulder.

Enlarged, sharpened crop of an 'elbow' in the lava channel. Note how this looks very similar to the Rima Hadley that Apollo 15 astronauts Dave Scott & the Late Jim Irwin visited.

The one difference though, is that this channel appears smoother & relatively boulder free, where as the one visited by Apollo 15 was riddled with boulders. This image is of sufficient resolution, only 1.4 metres per pixel, to show a similarly boulder riddled lava channel.

Andrew Brown.

 

[3488]

Re: LRO/LCROSS Mission

LRO images a possible lava tube skylight in the Marius Hills region on the Moon.

The Marius Hills volcanoes where the primary landing site for Apollo 14. However after the Apollo 13 incident, it was decided that Apollo 14 would instead carry out the mission for Apollo 13 in the Fra Mauro Highlands. The Marius Hills volcanoes unfortunatley remain unvisited by either humans or unmanned landers.

Area shown below is 550 metres wide.

Crop of actual lava tube skylight.

A crop of about 350 metres wide showing the skylight & what appears to be a rise around the right of the frame.

A crop of an area approx 250 metres wide showing what appears to be liniear depressions running directly N W in line with the skylight, just off the frame to the lower right.

Marius Hills as seen from Lunar Orbiter 4.

Marius Hills seen obliquely & on the Lunar dawn terminator. Kaguya / Selene.

Andrew Brown.

 

[3488]

Re: LRO/LCROSS Mission

18 KM wide Anaxagoras Crater. LRO Wide Angle Camera image. Anaxagoras Crater is a lunar arctic one @ 72 degrees 12' north.

Boulders on a ridge in Anaxagoras Crater. Image shows an area 400 metres across.

Shadowed area, lit by sunlight reflected from the west facing walls of Anaxagoras Crater.

Andrew Brown.

 

[3488]

Re: LRO/LCROSS Mission

785 metre wide small pyroclastic volcanic cone in the far side Schrodinger Basin.

A 400 metre wide enlarged sharpened crop. The crater clearly appears volcanic as it sits on top of a cone & there is no ejecta.

The entire 312 KM wide Schrodinger Basin from Clementine. The LRO observation is within the dark area arrowed.

Andrew Brown.

 

[3488]

Re: LRO/LCROSS Mission

Central peaks of Copernicus Crater.

Copernicus Crater is 93 KM in diameter, 3,800 metres deep & is thought to be around 800 million years old. The crater gives it's name to the current geological period on the Moon, the Copernican Period, which commenced 1.1 GYA, so it's commencement predates Copernicus Crater by around 300 million years.

LRO Wide Angle Camera image of Copernicus Crater.

LRO images the central peak of Copernicus Crater, image below approx 1,000 metres wide. The central mountains of Copernicus (of which there are three summits) stand 1,200 metres above the crater floor.

Close up of central peak of Copernicus Crater from the Narrow Angle Camera. Bedrock looks intact & is determined to be mostly Mafic Olivine, AKA Peridot, rich in magnesium & iron.

Clearly the material is solidified lava, though these mountains are not volcanoes, they are the rebound of the floor post impact.

Large boulders.

Boulders have rolled down the mountain to the floor of Copernicus. Even now this has to be one of the best ever lunar images from orbit.

Lunar Orbiter 2 oblique view. Lunar Oribter 2 was only 46 KM above the lunar surface when this was obtained. The Press dubbed this 'The Picture of the Century).

Central Mountains of Copernicus from Lunar Orbiter 2 restored by the Lunar Orbiter Image Restoration Project.

Andrew Brown.

 

[nimbus]

Re: LRO/LCROSS Mission

The cracks at the bottom of Schrodinger Basin are something like collapsed lava tubes?

 

[MeteorWayne]

Re: LRO/LCROSS Mission

When I have time later today, I am going to split this into separate LRO and a LCROSS discussions.

MW

 

[3488]

LRO possibly images ESA Smart 1 impact site imaged in Lacus Excellentiae??? :?:

Andrew Brown.

 

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LRO spies lava tube skylight in lunar farside Mare Ingenii.

The skylight is approx 130 metres wide.

An enlarged sharpened crop below.

Andrew Brown.

 

[3488]

LRO LROC WAC of Mare Orientale.

One of the best of the entire Mare Orientale observations since the Galileo spacecraft on route to Jupiter & the Lunar Orbiters before Apollo.

The Orientale basin is the youngest of the large lunar basins. The distinct outer ring is about 950 km from east-to-west, the full width of the LROC WAC mosaic is 1350 km [NASA/GSFC/University of Arizona].



Andrew Brown.

 

[EarthlingX]

LRO LROC WAC of Mare Orientale.

One of the best of the entire Mare Orientale observations since the Galileo spacecraft on route to Jupiter & the Lunar Orbiters before Apollo.

The Orientale basin is the youngest of the large lunar basins. The distinct outer ring is about 950 km from east-to-west, the full width of the LROC WAC mosaic is 1350 km [NASA/GSFC/University of Arizona].



Andrew Brown.

I think i can see why it would be considered one of the best Very sharp, and a lot of interesting details

Wiki : Mare Orientale

Mare Orientale (the "eastern sea") is one of the most striking large scale lunar features, resembling a target ring bull's-eye. Located on the extreme western edge of the lunar nearside, this impact basin is difficult to see from an Earthbound perspective.

Material from this basin was not sampled by the Apollo program so the basin's precise age is not known. However, it may be the freshest impact basin on the Moon and is believed to be slightly younger than the Imbrium Basin, which formed about 3.85 billion years ago. The surrounding basin material is of the Lower Imbrian epoch with the mare material being of the Upper Imbrian epoch.

 

[nimbus]

Located on the extreme western edge of the lunar nearside

That's for observers in the Northern hemisphere here on Earth. I was going to build a proper screenshot with nice textures but my PC fried so all I can contribute is this one stolen off the net.

 

[3488]

Thank you very much EarthlingX & Nimbus for your responses. :mrgreen:

A 670 metre wide section of a fracture within the interior of 41 KM wide Kopff Crater within the Mare Orientale.


Mare Orientale LRO LROC WAC, with the detail above arrowed.


Andrew Brown.

 

[EarthlingX]

Thanks Andrew

This looks nice :

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzO7HMrMSMI[/youtube]

To celebrate one year in orbit, here are ten cool things already observed by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. Note that the stories here are just a small sample of what the LRO team has released and barely touch on the major scientific accomplishments of the mission.

 

[EarthlingX]

Since we had a short discussion about Lunar lava tubes, i will drop this here too, after the third time looking for it in this thread .. :roll:
I posted this in "Tunnels on the Moon" thread :

http://www.planetary.org : Likely candidate for an un-collapsed lava tube

By Emily Lakdawalla

Jun. 21, 2010 | 13:11 PDT | 20:11 UTC

In February, the Chandrayaan-1 science team had a meeting in Ahmedabad, India, to share their results with each other. Indian space blogger Pradeep Mohandas forwarded me a document containing numerous abstracts from that meeting. I'm not sure that the document itself was intended for public consumption; some of the results in it may be lined up for formal publication, so I won't post the full document here.

But there was one cool little paper that I just had to write about: "Identification of an Un-Collapsed Lava Tube for Possible Future Human Settlement Using Chandryaan-1 TMC Data," by A. S. Arya, R. P. Rajasekhar, Ajai, A. S. Kiran Kumar, and R. R. Navalfund of the Space Applications Centre (SAC) of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). I contacted Dr. Arya, who gave me permission to post the images below -- a big thanks for those images!

A discontinuous rille on the Moon (Lunar Orbiter view)
A small segment of sinuous rille within Oceanus Procellarum is discontinuous, suggesting the possibility that part of it has an intact roof. Credit: NASA

Perspective view of uncollapsed lava tube on the Moon
Credit: SAC / ISRO / INDIA, courtesy of A. S. Arya

Perspective view of uncollapsed lava tube on the Moon
This perspective view of a discontinuous sinuous rille in the Moon's Oceanus Procellarum was generated from Chandrayaan-1 Terrain Mapping Camera (TMC) data. TMC had two overlapping cameras, so produced stereoscopic views of the lunar terrain at a resolution of 5 meters per pixel. The rille is located at 58.317°W, 14.111°N. The topographic data indicates that the surface of the segment of lunar crust between the two rille segments has topography continuous with the surrounding plains, strongly suggesting that the open sections of the rille are areas where the roof has collapsed into a subterranean cavern, and that they are likely connected by a still-enclosed tunnel. Credit: SAC / ISRO / INDIA, courtesy of A. S. Arya

 

[3488]

Thanks EarthlingX, I'll come back to the Lava Tubes.

Found this, LRO LROC NAC imaged Earth from Lunar Orbit on: Saturday 12th June 2010, during a calibration session.

Article Here.

Image on left is unannotated, one on right is annotated.

AP: Arabian Peninsula; CS: Caspian Sea; H: Himalayan Mountains; L: Lena River; I: Indian Ocean; A: Australia; J: Japan; P: Pacific Ocean; large yellow arrow indicates approximate position of the North Pole. Credit: NASA/Goddard/Arizona State University.



Andrew Brown.