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LRO Reveals Over 200 Pits on the Moon

While the moon's surface is battered by millions of craters, it also has over 200 holes – steep-walled pits that in some cases might lead to caves that future astronauts could explore and use for shelter, according to new observations from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft.

The pits range in size from about 5 meters (~5 yards) across to more than 900 meters (~984 yards) in diameter, and three of them were first identified using images from the Japanese Kaguya spacecraft. Hundreds more were found using a new computer algorithm that automatically scanned thousands of high-resolution images of the lunar surface from LRO's Narrow Angle Camera (NAC).

"Pits would be useful in a support role for human activity on the lunar surface," said Robert Wagner of Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona. "A habitat placed in a pit -- ideally several dozen meters back under an overhang -- would provide a very safe location for astronauts: no radiation, no micrometeorites, possibly very little dust, and no wild day-night temperature swings." Wagner developed the computer algorithm, and is lead author of a paper on this research now available online in the journal Icarus.

Most pits were found either in large craters with impact melt ponds – areas of lava that formed from the heat of the impact and later solidified, or in the lunar maria – dark areas on the moon that are extensive solidified lava flows hundreds of miles across. In ancient times, the maria were thought to be oceans; "maria" is the Latin word for "seas." Various cultures have interpreted the patterns formed by the maria features in different ways; for example, some saw the face of a man, while others saw a rabbit or a boy carrying a bundle of sticks on his back.

The pits could form when the roof of a void or cave collapses, perhaps from the vibrations generated by a nearby meteorite impact, according to Wagner. However, he noted that from their appearance in the LRO photos alone, there is little evidence to point to any particular cause. The voids could be created when molten rock flowed under the lunar surface; on Earth, lava tubes form when magma flows beneath a solidified crust and later drains away. The same process could happen on the moon, especially in a large impact crater, the interior of which can take hundreds of thousands of years to cool, according to Wagner. After an impact crater forms, the sides slump under lunar gravity, pushing up the crater's floor and perhaps causing magma to flow under the surface, forming voids in places where it drains away.

Exploring impact melt pits would pin down the nature of the voids in which they form. "They are likely due to melt flow within the pond from uplift after the surface has solidified, but before the interior has cooled," said Wagner. "Exploring impact melt pits would help determine the magnitude of this uplift, and the amount of melt flow after the pond is in place."

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Using LRO Multispectral Data to Derive Lunar Topography

Retrieving lunar topography from multispectral LROC images

Authors:

Korokhin et al

Abstract:

A technique for retrieving information about the lunar topography from any individual multispectral LROC Wide Angle Camera (WAC) image has been developed. This technology is possible, since images acquired at different wavelengths correspond to different viewing angles and the influence of color differences between the images on the parallax assessments is small. This method provides the precision of digital elevation models (DEMs) comparable to the global lunar 100 m raster DTM retrieved from the LROC WAC stereo model (GLD100). It potentially allows one to obtain maps of the elevations with better horizontal resolution than those of the GLD100. An empirical model of the distortion for LROC WAC has been developed and used for correction of the initial WAC images. In contrast to the standard pre-flight model, our model allows for compensation of the radial distortion, decentering the optics, and tilt of the CCD array almost fully. The DEMs obtained using our approach exhibit real morphological details in some cases that are invisible in GLD100 maps. Thus, our method suggests additional independent information about the lunar topography. That our elevation maps have the same projection as the initial images allows valid corrections of these images to account for topographic effects (i.e. orthorectification) in contrast to the use of the GLD100 that may have slightly different coordinate referencing in comparison to individual WAC images.

A Volcanic Deposit in the Mare Vaporum

On a Volcanic construct and a Lunar Pyroclastic Deposit (LPD) in northern Mare Vaporum

Authors:

Lena et al

Abstract:

In this study we examine a lunar pyroclastic deposit (LPD) identified using LROC WAC images, Selene-1 (Kaguya) and Clementine multispectral data, the Chandryann-1's Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3), and the LROC WAC-based GLD100 DTM. Selene-1 (Kaguya) and Clementine albedo imagery indicates the presence of pyroclastic deposits located some 40 km to the west-southwest of the crater Yangel in Mare Vaporum, and to the southeast of Sinus Fidei (16.42°N and 3.26°E), and associated with a dome like structure. This dome, which we term Yangel 1 (Ya1), lies immediately to the south of a mare flooded crater which is approximately 7.5 km in diameter, and is partially buried along its southern rim by the domes northern flank. With a diameter of 5.2 km, and a height of 620 m, the dome Ya1 exhibits evidence of pyroclastic volcanic deposits, both on its surface and peripherally. The current study discusses the dome Ya1, the associated deposits and possible relationship between them.