A collaboration of researchers has utilized a new lunar satellite to observe previously unknown aspects of Earth’s moon. The paper, entitled “Evidence of Recent Thrust Faulting on the Moon Revealed by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera,” was published last month in Science magazine.
Led by principal investigator Thomas Watters, of the Center for Earth and Planetary Studies at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, the paper theorizes that these aspects of the moon’s surface were created as recently as one billion years ago.
Lobate scarps are formed by the plates that comprise the moon’s surface pushing over each other. Previously, the only known lobate scarps were imaged by orbiting Apollo spacecraft, which stayed close the moon’s equator. This research, however, used different means of acquiring the data.
“The lobate scarps were identified in Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter [LRO] Camera-Narrow Angle Camera high resolution, 0.5 to 2 meters per pixel, images,” wrote Watters in an email to The News-Letter. “These are the [highest] resolution images of the Moon ever obtained from orbit.”
Launched in June 2009, the LRO is capable of taking high-resolution images over a wide range of the moon’s surface. This is a huge improvement over past technologies and systems used to observe the moon.
“To date, we have imaged only about 10 percent of the lunar surface with the high resolution Narrow Angle Camera images. Over the next two years of the nominal mission we will continue to map the lunar surface with these high resolution images,” wrote Watters.
“If the spacecraft stays healthy and with a one to two year extended mission, we will have a 1 to 2 meter per pixel image map the entire lunar surface. This will allow us to identify all the lobate scarps on the Moon and make much more accurate estimates of the contrational strain and corresponding change in radius.”
In its primal stages, the moon was made up of magma oceans on the surface and a cool core. When the magma solidified, the volume decreased causing the moon to contract and form scarps along fault lines. Of the models that exist for this phenomenon, the paper’s assertions are consistent with those that describe a small decrease in lunar radius.
The LRO was launched along with the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) as part of a renewed interest in sending man back to the moon. A highly publicized mission, LCROSS impacted a satellite into the surface on the moon last October, in the hope of discovering water on the moon. Analysis of the resulting plume confirmed the presence of water on the lunar surface.
LRO is currently one year into a planned four-year mission to map the moon’s surface. At a project cost of about $500 million, it houses seven instruments. One of the objectives of the LRO cameras is to help identify areas suitable for future lunar landings.
Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab (APL) has been active in these missions. APL researchers contributed to some of the instrumentation on LRO. Additionally, Elizabeth Turtle of APL was an author of the recent Science paper.
