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Jan 16, 2009 05:07 PM | 6
A NASA instrument aboard the moon-orbiting Indian satellite Chandrayaan-1 has provided the first glimpses inside shadowy lunar craters. The instrument, known as Mini-SAR, used radar soundings to map the floors of polar craters that are continually hidden from view.
These dark, cold pockets are possible havens for water ice, which Mini-SAR will try to spot from its orbiting perch 60 miles (100 kilometers) above the lunar surface. The radar will also map both of the moon's polar regions during the two-year Chandrayaan-1 mission.
At left, Mini-SAR data (diagonal strip) details the bottom of Haworth crater, near the moon's south pole.
Photo credit: ISRO/NASA/JHUAPL/LPI/Cornell University/Smithsonian
Tags:
lunar craters,
radar,
lunar water,
ice on the moon,
Chandrayaan-1,
Haworth crater
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6 Comments
Add CommentAny desire to explain the 2001 Obelisk in the center of the image? It is a central feature so it might be nice to at least mention what it is... a zoomed area? a problem with the overlay of images? A strange artifact of alien superscience?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHey, genius... it is obviously a slice from the enhanced image that Chandrayaan-1 was able to take of the crater floor (read the article.. it is literally 3 paragraphs). Then they overlayed and rotated that sliced image onto a wider-angled and lower quality image of the region. So yes, it is a "zoomed area".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy is it that you would be reading a scientific magazine if your deductive and abductive reasoning is so lacking? I suppose you must be seeking out information to help support your psuedo-scientific beliefs so that, in turn, you can propagate incredulous notions like alien superscience left as benign monoliths amid the lunar regolith. Perhaps it would behoove you to spend your time reading science texts and research papers instead of magazines until you are capable of basic scientific faculties... like observation and educated hypothesizing.
Hey, genius... it is obviously a slice from the enhanced image that Chandrayaan-1 was able to take of the crater floor (read the article.. it is literally 3 paragraphs). Then they overlayed and rotated that sliced image onto a wider-angled and lower quality image of the region. So yes, it is a "zoomed area".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy is it that you would be reading a scientific magazine if your deductive and abductive reasoning is so lacking? I suppose you must be seeking out information to help support your psuedo-scientific beliefs so that, in turn, you can propagate incredulous notions like alien superscience left as benign monoliths amid the lunar regolith. Perhaps it would behoove you to spend your time reading science texts and research papers instead of magazines until you are capable of basic scientific faculties... like observation and educated hypothesizing.
pion137: you need to lighten up a WHOLE bunch. Maybe you could find a way to be gracious and cut the guy some slack. Why the need to rip on the guy ? Wouldn't a simple "hey, I noticed in the third paragraph..." be a LOT easier for the rest of the world to have to deal with than your need to be insulting ? As far as the monolith, didn't you read 2001- A Space Odyssey. The guy was simply trying to be funny.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisalso, you have to account for some people not being quite as smart as you are, or not as old. i have been reading scientific American since at least the age of 15 every month and th eonline articles (which i have to admit are not always as good) for more than a year
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow very appropriate.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this