- Something old, something new! Photo comparison courtesy NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center/Arizona State University.
Earth’s crater-pocked old Moon sports a new feature.
Thanks to the high-power imaging system – the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera, or LROC for short – a new crater has been spotted that’s roughly 30 feet across.
The fresh feature is thought by scientists to have been created by an asteroid or comet within the last 38 years.
How do researchers know that?
This crater is not visible in images from the Apollo 15 mission in 1971 – so by comparing “before” and “after” images of the area the feature must have formed sometime in the last 38 years.
NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is on the lookout for new craters. And by using past and present images, Moon experts can establish the present-day impact cratering rate on the Moon. That will also lead to better understanding of the bombardment rate in the inner solar system.
The newly found crater stands out from all the nearby craters. Bright ejecta (tossed up surface material from the impact) spews outward from the feature. The impact exposed fresh material from underneath the Moon’s surface.
If researchers can gain a better sense of the current impact rate for this size of impactor, more effective designs for habitats and hardware can be ascertained to protect future human explorers.
Also, a crater this young has not been modified by other processes – so scientists can study the appearance of features we know are extremely fresh.
By LD/CSE