Massive moon crater might contain ice
Source: CBC News
Massive moon crater might contain ice
By Kazi Stastna, CBC News Posted: Jun 20, 2012 2:34 PM ET | Last Updated: Jun 20, 2012 9:40 PM ET
Scientists probing the three-billion-year-old Shackleton crater at the south pole of the moon believe their observations could support the suspicion that there is ice within the four-kilometre-deep pockmark on the lunar surface.
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Brown University and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Centre used millions of measurements made by an instrument called a laser altimeter to map the changes in elevation and brightness within the crater, which is 21 kilometres wide and about as deep as the Earth's oceans.
"We decided we would study the living daylights out of this crater," said lead investigator Maria Zuber, a professor of geophysics at MIT's department of earth, atmospheric and planetary sciences, in a news release. "From the incredible density of observations, we were able to make an extremely detailed topographic map."
The altimeter used to make the measurements is mounted on a spacecraft called the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which orbits the moon from pole to pole taking millions of images and measurements of the moon's topography, temperature, chemical composition, ability to reflect light and other characteristics.
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Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2012/06/20/sci-moon-crater-ice.html
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