High Resolution NASA Radar … Maps The Moon :: Oblate Spheroid

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory has recently released new high-resolution radar maps of the Moon's south pole. The mapping technique is unique in that it uses digital radar information gleaned from one array of the most sophisticated radar antennae’s in NASA’s arsenal of sensing equipment.

The antenna’s in the array measure three-quarters the size of a football field. From the Mojave desert in California here on the Oblate Spheroid, the antennae send a 500-kilowatt strong, 90-minute long radar stream 231,800 miles to the Moon … and back. The information is then processed with computers at JPL in Pasadena in order to develop detail maps of the Moon’s surface for possible landing sites of possible future Lunar exploration missions. This technique is second only to actually launching a satellite with sophisticated camera equipment and surface sensors.

 Digital Elevation Map of Lunar South
Pole - Image brightness is generated from the strength of the radar echoes that
are bounced of the lunar surface and the color represents the elevation. This
map covers an area of 650 kilometers (400 miles) by 450 kilometers (280 miles)
with an elevation measurement every 40 meters (130 feet). Image Credit:
NASA

This excerpted from Science @ NASA website
-

New Radar Maps of the
Moon
Science @ NASA -
February 29, 2008

NASA has obtained new high-resolution radar maps
of the Moon's south pole--a region the space agency is considering as a landing
site when astronauts return to the Moon in the years ahead.

"We now know
the south pole has peaks as high as Mt. McKinley and crater floors four times
deeper than the Grand Canyon," says Doug Cooke, deputy associate administrator
for the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters. "These
data will be an invaluable tool for advance planning of lunar
missions."

New radar imagery of the lunar south
pole. The movie simulates
solar illumination over the course of a complete lunar day. Video Credit:
NASA

Scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory collected
the data using the Goldstone Solar System Radar located in California's Mojave
Desert. Three times in 2006, JPL scientists targeted the moon's south polar
region using Goldstone's 70-meter radar dish. The antenna, three-quarters the
size of a football field, sent a 500-kilowatt strong, 90-minute long radar
stream 231,800 miles to the Moon. The radar illuminated the rough-hewn lunar
surface over an area measuring about 400 by 250 miles. Signals were reflected
back to two of Goldstone's 34-meter antennas on Earth. Scientists have been
analyzing the echoes ever since, and the data were released by NASA for the
first time this week.

NASA has used the data to make a
VR movie of a Moon landing from the point of view of the astronaut. Click here to watch. Animation Credit: NASA

"I have not
been to the Moon, but this imagery is the next best thing," says Scott Hensley,
a scientist at JPL and lead investigator for the study. "With these data we can
see terrain features as small as a house without even leaving the
office."

NASA is eying the Moon's south polar region as a possible site
for future outposts. The location has many advantages; for one thing, there is
evidence
of water frozen in deep dark south polar craters. Water can be
split into oxygen to breathe and hydrogen to burn as rocket fuel--or astronauts
could simply drink it. Planners are also looking for "peaks of eternal
light." Tall polar mountains where the sun never sets might be a
good place for a solar power station.

These are the highest-resolution
maps to date. The best images, previously, were generated by the Clementine
spacecraft, which could resolve lunar terrain features near the south pole at 1
kilometer per pixel. The JPL radar maps are 50 times more detailed.

As
wonderful as they are, however, these images will pale in comparison to
next-generation photos from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. The spacecraft
is scheduled to launch in late 2008 and its camera will beam back photos of the
moon with details as small as 1 meter.

"The south pole of the Moon," says
Cooke, is going to be "a beautiful place to explore."
Reference
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