These images have undoubtedly given a lot of information to scientists about our only natural satellite. The LRO has been orbiting the Moon for 13 years as of press time and in that span of time, it has sent back images of the moon and even around the moon. Images Taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter This mission was completed in 2010 and the LRO has since been on an extended mission.Īccording to NASA, "The mission has provided technical innovations and made surprising discoveries that have changed our view of the Moon." The space agency adds that the data gathered by the LRO will be particularly useful for future scientists and explorers. It entered the Moon's orbit five days later and its Exploration Mission officially began on Sept. The LRO was launched to space on Jat 5:32 p.m. NASA describes it as "a robotic spacecraft currently orbiting the Moon in an eccentric polar mapping orbit." LRO is managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington.The spacecraft in question is known as the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). Launched on June 18th, 2009, LRO has collected a treasure trove of data with its seven powerful instruments, making an invaluable contribution to our knowledge about the moon. Called temporal pairs, these before/after images enable the search for a range of surface changes, including new impact craters, formed between the time the first and second image were acquired.Īs of January 1st, 2015, LROC has acquired about 10,000 before and after image pairs. The LROC team is going back to images taken in the first year or two and comparing them to recent images. The March 17th impact crater is one of thousands of craters being mapped by the instrument. The results were published in the January 31st edition of the journal Icarus. More than 200 related surficial changes up to 30 kilometres (19 miles) away were noted.
Image credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center/Arizona State UniversityThe crater itself is small, measuring 18.8 metres (61.7 feet) in diameter, but its influence large debris excavated by the sudden release of energy flew for hundreds of metres. The new crater is about 19 metres (62 feet) wide. The before image is from February 12th, 2012, and the after image is from July 28th, 2013. The two images are from the LROC instrument aboard NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. This animation shows a lunar impact crater created on March 17th, 2013. A NAC pair was targeted on that convergence point for Jcomparison of this third set of images with preexisting coverage revealed a new crater. LROC’s first set of post-impact flash images acquired on May 21th, 2013 by the Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) were targeted on the Marshall-reported coordinates and numerous small surface disturbances (“splotches”) were detected by comparing the pre- and post-flash images, but no new crater was found.Ī second set of NAC images was acquired on July 1st, 2013, showing three faint ray-like features and several chains of splotches and asymmetric splotches that generally pointed to a common area west of the Marshall coordinates. Goal: Map the moons surface like never before, expanded science mission after first year.
Comparing the actual size of the crater to the brightness of the flash helps validate impact models. LRO is a robotic mission that set out to map the moons surface and, after a year of exploration, was extended with a unique set of science objectives. The Lunar Reconnaissance Camera (LROC) scientists were able to obtain observations before and after the impact. This bright flash was recorded by researchers at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville with coordinates 20.6°N, 336.1☎. On March 17th, 2013, an object the size of a small boulder hit the surface in Mare Imbrium and exploded in a flash of light nearly 10 times as bright as anything ever recorded before. Image credit: NASA (simulation)NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) acquired images of the lunar surface before and after the largest recorded explosion occurred on the surface. By comparing pictures taken early in the mission with more recent images, the LRO camera team at Arizona State University has discovered more than two-dozen new impact craters - including an 18-meter-wide crater caused by a bright flash on March 17th, 2013. In 2009, NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) arrived at the Moon and began taking high-resolution photographs. Planetary scientists believe that small impacts regularly bombard the Moon, but until recently, they’ve had no way to distinguish new craters from the already pockmarked lunar surface.
0 kommentar(er)
