I know it may be too early for such a thread, but an announcement has to be made.
The official website of the LROC camera is:
http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/
A brief description plus status is available here:
http://www.msss.com/lro/lroc/index.html
At the moment, they're saying not to expect images until early July (which is just a week away). That makes some sense, I guess, since they have commissioning to do.
--Greg
Curious as to the soon-to-be demonstrated LROC resolution, I've brewed up a "50cm/pixel" image of the Apollo 15 landing site, taken from the ascent 16mm film.
It's going to be fascinating to see what state the descent stages and tracks are now in, after ~ 500 cycles of -150C to 100C. (Descent stages were never manned - does that make it ok for UMSF, Doug? ;-))
Looks like LOI-2 was successful.....
http://twitter.com/LRO_NASA/status/2308875359
jb
I look forward to the LRO images of the human hardware on our Moon.........
I still chuckle at Buzz punching that reporter ....not that I condone physical violence of course......
I'm very much looking forward to those photos, too. Don't hold your breath that any unbelievers will be swayed...they'll just claim that these photos were doctored. The rest of us will cherish the opportunity to see not only the Apollo but also the unmanned lander sites. This is a thrilling time!!
The admin call is yeah - it's good to talk about the Apollo hardware. It's a history subject rather than a manned spaceflight subject
But we can knock the conspiracy stuff on the head. No data is going to convince them otherwise. VERY pointless even giving them a passing thought.
I would like to get a look at the ALSEP packages. The Apollo 12 ALSEP holds the longevity record for continuous operation on the surface of another world, longer even than Viking 1! The Apollo 14 ALSEP was also in operation for longer than Viking 1.
I already can't wait for a surface visit to these historic sites, and I really can't wait for http://www.google.com/moon/ to get the LRO pics!
Speaking historically,
hope LRO can tell how close the APOLLO 14 astronauts actually got to the rim of Cone Crater. Perhaps they scuffed up the regolith enough for LRO to detect the tracks they made. Though that is a long shot.
Craig
Actually the A14 EVA-2 track is quite well worked out, based on the pics the crew took on the surface during the EVA. What I'm more interested in seeing is if the MET tracks are visible. LRV tracks will likely be easier to spot in LRO images than the MET tracks, since the open-mesh LRV tires disturbed the soil more and spun up rooster tails. The MET had actual rubber tires, which left smooth tracks. I'll be mighty interested in seeing if MET tracks are visible (or are as visible as LRV tracks).
Then I want to see those compared to Lunakhod tracks...
-the other Doug
Well we have an good before and after....
http://www.moonviews.com/archives/2009/06/lunar_orbiter_image_recovery_p_6.html
In addition to the 400+ heating and cooling cycles, I'm really interested to see if there has been any visible evidence of electrostatically-induced movement of dust. There was speculation that the day/night cycle caused electrostatic transport of dust particles - I don't know how big those dust particles are, but 40 years elapsed time may be enough to result in reduced reflectivity on some of the hardware.
Actually we know how close the Apollo 14 crew got to Cone Crater's rim, because we can compare the boulders seen in their surface images at Station C1 with the Lunar Orbiter images of the same boulders. They didn't know at the time, but we know it now. They were about 40 m from the rim but couldn't see over it into the depression. It will still be great to see these places at unprecedented resolution, but it won't change our ideas about the location of C1.
Phil
Also potentially pertinent to the appearance of the Apollo lunar surface hardware is the work that is currently underway at the National Air and Space Museum to replace all the Kapton foil on LM-2, which has been sitting in sunlight at least part of every day for the past 33 years. There's a more detailed summary of the restoration work underway at http://www.collectspace.com/ubb/Forum41/HTML/000274.html, but what I thought was particularly interesting was this little snippet:
Indeed. There's mounting evidence that Kapton isn't really very durable over time, esp. when exposed to extreme heat. I suspect that the material on the descent stages may have long since crumbled away.
How much of that evidence is at 1 std atm vs near vacuum? Is it just extreme heat or extreme heat + reacting gases?
Just look at Hubble Insulation. It's crumbling off. It may be going thru more rapid thermal cycles than Apollo hardware - but there's evidence that long space exposure does end up ruining that sort of insulation material.
There are a lot of other interesting potential variables to consider, too. For example, the Apollo stuff's obviously exposed directly to the solar wind while Hubble isn't, but at the same time HST is exposed to monatomic oxygen in LEO. Does any of that make any difference? Dunno.
All we seem to know with high confidence is that kapton looks very stable for 5-10 years--long enough for most nominal missions to date--of exposure to the inner Solar System space environments we've spent the most time in, but prospects don't look promising for much longer durations.
http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/news/?archives/57-Almost-there!.html
http://lroupdate.blogspot.com/
LROC camera turned on for a series of preliminary measurements. Images are expected to be taken on 3rd July.
LOLA laser altimeter successfully turned on.
I was the contractor on the LM-2 job. I was really shocked at the quality of the sun-facing Kapton sheets. They only had the 2 mil aluminized Kapton on LM-2 and it broke apart in your hands - not brittle, just a kind of mushy break. It was very dull - looked a bit like the Vbar side of the Kapton coverings from the early Shuttle flights (the elbow camera on the arm for example) which got "eaten" away by atomic oxygen in low earth orbit. For LM-2 we replaced the old stuff with proper variations of Kapton (1/2, 2 and 5 mil thicknesses) so if the complete restoration is not done soon, we might get some idea about how different thicknesses of Kapton handle the heat and light in the relatively benign environment of the museum.
looks like first pics are up if I'm reading it right
http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/news/?archives/62-First-LROC-Images!.html
cheers
jb
edit:more info http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/multimedia/lroimages/lroc_20090702_a.html
Thanks for that!
Gorgeous... just gorgeous...
Time to buy a new portable hard drtive, I think...!
These images came early
A WAC image also appeared!
http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/news/index.php?/archives/62-First-LROC-Images!.html#extended
Nice and convenient method for viewing large images.
http://wms.lroc.asu.edu/lroc_browse/view/nacl000000fd
For some reason these remind me of Cassini's hi-res images of Phoebe.
How strange it is to look at somewhere just next door and think of something far more distant and alien. Surely a sign of just how long it's been since we last had lunar imagery of this kind.
WOW...incredible.
If these early images are anything to go, we're in for a treat over the next year or so
John
Yes, a real treat!
Phil
I'm impressed that the first calibration image, from the "commissioning" orbit (higher than the final science orbit, IIRC) is stated to have a resolution of 73cm per pixel.
Wow!
-the other Doug
The current orbit is 30kmx199km. Periapsis is at the south pole. The science orbit is nominally 50km circular. So this image, assuming that the resolution is listed correctly, was taken at a lower altitude than the science orbit. The nominal resolution is 50 cm from 50 km (1 m summed).
On July 3, LRO officially entered the Instrument Commissioning Phase. See http://lroupdate.blogspot.com/ for further details.
A first LROC picture taken on July 3 has been issued as well (a region south-east of Clavius); see page http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/news/?archives/66-Swooping-over-the-Lunar-Highlands.html
Fascinating -- this surface strongly resembles the "elephant-skin" surface observed in some of the Ranger IX photos of Alphonsus and around Gassendi. Among many other places.
My understanding of the best speculation on what forms this kind of surface is that we're looking at debris flow patterns from large-scale ejecta events (i.e., basin ejecta emplacement events). If this is in the Clavius region, would that imply we're looking at Aiken Basin ejecta debris flow?
-the other Doug
I like the 'debris flow' hypothesis -- very interesting.
There definitely are series of striations running diagonally across the picture from upper-left to lower-right. However, depending on the exact location of this lovely shot, I wonder would these be due to Tycho's influence -- just north of Clavius, or, are they, an integrated effect of the above flow hypothesis?
John
Goldschmidt D in a new LROC image.
http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/news/?archives/68-Peeking-out-of-the-shadows.html
Many thanks for that heads-up. That's a nice image, very abstract and sparse... like it a lot. I get the feeling that we're going to get quite a few unintentionally "arty" shots from LRO.
Crop from image http://wms.lroc.asu.edu/lroc_browse/view/iom20090703 shoing some nice boulders around a crater...
Hmmmm that zoomify image doesn't load anymore
Quite a few pics up now...
http://wms.lroc.asu.edu/lroc_browse
"Zoomify" is working fine for me here right now...
Is it just me, or - when loading the TIF's at full res, there appears to be some sort of interlacing (vertically). i.e. one column of pixels is bright, the next dark..bright, dark etc etc.
Attached zoom from http://wms.lroc.asu.edu/lroc_browse/view/nacl00000145
I guess some sort of adaptive amplification to create a pseudo enhanced dynamic range might be involved....or it might be a processing error, or it might be just something to do with the TIF's.
You can sort of back it out with some VERY rudimentary Photoshopping (doesn't quite get the shadows...someone cleverer than I could do it). I'd expect proper calibration (which is, after all, the point of these early images) would eliminate it. I found a different chunt and had a go at it
Definitely looks like something a flatfield (or possibly a dark model) would fix so I wouldn't worry about it much. Reminds me a bit of the awful dark current noise in VIMS visual channel.
http://wms.lroc.asu.edu/lroc_browse/view/nacl00000141
About one third of the way down from the top of this frame is a truly gigantic boulder with a very smooth sun-facing side, triangular or diamond in shape, casting a very long shadow.
Nice pictures. The most intriguing thing is that the skin of elephant is very common on the Moon surface. In spite of the fact, these might be originated by any kind of erosion that happens in the Earth.
I seems that they might be occurring when the below surface might have fractures where the regolith sink and it is smoothed by the solar bombard of particles. The others suppositions are that the boulders caused by the impacts are rounded or disintegrated by the solar influence after thousands millions years. Hope this mystery would be cleared up soon.
Useful link http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/whereislro/
Quite impressive pinnacles and spikes around Anaxagoras A...
Zoomify does....but it only zooms to 100%. If you screen grab and zoom in more - the same effect is in there.
I guess my point was that the LROC folks are doing a good job of modifying the raw data so that the striping effect is almost non-existent on the Zoomify images. I went and zoomed up to the pixel limit, grabbed the image and dug deeper. Yes, there is a hint of that striping in some of the image "blocks" but it looks more like a "jpeg-ing." They're very nice anyway!
Tiny bit of LROC WA mosaic from the calib image released.
It'd be interesting to see if we can pull out a bit of colour variation
There's a 'flyover' movie posted on http://www.youtube.com/v/052DosGtJLs&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&feature=player_embedded&fs=1"></param><param%20name="allowFullScreen"%20value="true"></param><param%20name="allowScriptAccess"%20value="always"></param><embed%20src="http://www.youtube.com/v/052DosGtJLs&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&feature=player_embedded&fs=1"%20type="application/x-shockwave-flash"%20allowfullscreen="true"%20allowScriptAccess="always"%20width="425"%20height="344"></embed></object> today.
I am speechless...
This is a stupid query, but why are all the images North down and South up
The usual views of presenting images is to have North up and West on the left -- in accordance to the cardinal points as laid down for the Moon by the IAU in 1961. Will future images see a change in orintation?
John
Uncalibrated, raw imaging swaths taken on a descending node in a polar orbit will have north pointed down. Map-projected products take care of this.
http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/news/index.php?/archives/72-NAC-Imaging-Hiatus.html#extended
Cropped / enhanced crater from the floor of Compton Crater...
http://twitpic.com/9zav0
What instrument will be able to "see" the dark parts of Moon, as the bottom of the Compton crater?
SpaceListener: Mini-RF. This instrument is also flying aboard Chandrayaan-1 and we already have maps:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/Mini-RF/multimedia/index.html
BTW I'm amazed to see objects as small as rocks on the surface on the Moon! These NAC photographs are AWESOME.
Knowing the fact the current resolution is about 1 meter per pixel at least and these rock are larger than a pixel (or even a few pixels), you are right. But they look cool
OK, on topic:
http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/news/?archives/74-Mapping-the-Moon-with-the-Wide-Angle-Camera.html
A new WAC image has been published
Didn't see this recent news item mentioned here:
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n0907/06kaguya/
"Japan's now-finished lunar mission found no water ice"
I don't think anyone has ever anticipated finding glaciers of white ice just sitting in the bottoms of polar lunar craters. Exposed ice would sublimate quite quickly when exposed to the vacuum.
Instead, I believe the expectation is to find an "icy regolith" layer (something like a permafrost layer) underneath a completely dry layer of regolith. The minute gaps between the grains of the covering regolith cap would be enough for the tiny amount of sublimation that results in the hydrogen signature detected by Clementine and Lunar Prospector.
-the other Doug
http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/news/?archives/77-The-Moon-in-3D.html
LROC images in 3D
Yes, Dvandorn, I think the situation on the moon will be similar to what Phoenix found on Mars -- ice (or an ice rich regolith) covered by a relatively thin layer of dry regolith.
Very nice bit http://wiki.nasa.gov/cm/blog/lcrossfdblog on the whole LCROSS cruise phase setup -- flight director for LCROSS. Well worth a read.
John
------------
A couple of nice new LROC images posted on their site in the last couple of days. This is a really nice camera!
Phil
This is a tiny detail from the upper wall of Burg crater in the latest LROC image. Nice dust streamers - I don't recall anything like this in Apollo or Lunar Orbiter images.
Phil
Hmm. And you of all people would certainly know, Phil.
That's really interesting. If they are in fact dust streamers, what's the sorting mechanism to generate them? It's gotta be a thermal expansion/contraction thing, but nothing obvious springs to mind.
Yes...hmmm...I wonder would quakes be a contributing factor?
Phil, is it odd that the albedo of these streamers is lower than from where they originated from -- I would have thought the layer of dust that rolled down wouldn't have changed it much?
John
Particle size and surface texture affect reflectivity as well as albedo. We can't separate those factors yet and say the albedo is different.
Electrostatic effects might move dust while leaving coarser material, allowing it to slide downhill on its own.
Phil
How long ago might such a landslide/deposit have taken place? A billion years? Only when the crater formed? Or perhaps more recent?
I would guess that the large wall slumps defining the crater terraces occurred immediately after crater formation, the small local landslides which form rubbly deposits on the terraces take place sporadically every few million years, and that these dust treamers are formed by gradual, continual (or short timescale episodic, like every year or two) ongoing processes.
There are some nice rolling boulder tracks below this area.
Phil
Thanks Phil
OT: The half-covered crater just on the boundary in the Frigoris Image is simply excellent at very high res...WOW.
John
PS...I see the color camera is now working fine...yeah...sacrilegious, I know
http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/news/?archives/84-Bright-Crater-Rays-and-Boulders.html
Bright crater rays and boulders
http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/news/?archives/85-Hummocks-and-blocks-and-craters.html
Tsiolkovsky crater
Yes! This sample is just another example of rock movement.
Because this is what I think has happened while looking at these images.
We can clearly seen the trails. But what could have caused this? The Moon is a dead body for millions of years.
Seismic shaking caused by nearby impacts?
Phil
Have they mostly slid or tumbled ? Some tracks remind me of Spirits' RF
Eoin
Pretty weird seeing craters on the tops of those Tsiolkovsky ejecta blocks. Obviously you know they must be there, but it just seems odd seeing them in 'solid rock' compared to the surrounding regolith.
p
James, look at the Apollo or Surveyor images taken on the surface and you will see that rocks are actually quite rare, outside of specific locations: the rims of fresh craters, or at the foot of a slope where they collect after rolling. Apollo images (later missions especially) are in fact a bit misleading, since many sampling stations were chosen to be in groups of rocks (Apollo 17 Station 5 and Station 6, or Apollo 16 at North Ray being good examples). I've been having this discussion with some Google Lunar X Prize teams, who have greatly exaggerated the danger of landing on rocks and maybe under-rated the danger of landing on sloping crater walls.
To me the LROC images match very closely what the surface images lead me to expect.
Phil
The Apollo landing sites were rock-free to the extent possible, but the sampling stations were often at much more interesting and hazardous locations. Nobody would try to land on the rocky rim of Camelot crater or North Ray.
But as an excellent example, consider Surveyor 7, which landed on the ejecta of a fresh impact crater, Tycho. The surface images show rocks, but most of the surface is fairly rock-free. Here's an image of it:
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?act=attach&type=post&id=9690
Rock distributions - just guesses:
On a typical mare site I would guess 50 to 100 1m rocks per square km, but heavily concentrated in the rim deposits of fresh craters. Away from those craters, only 5 to 10 per square km.
On typical highland terrain, maybe 25% of those figures.
Phil
LRO has done a full longitude circuit of the Moon since the release of the Apollo site images... so an Apollo 12 release may not be too far away. Not to mention a few other sites if we're lucky. The sun will be noticeably higher now.
Phil
I'm thinking that the biggest and therefore most easily resolvable INTACT NON-APOLLO OBJECTS on the Moon are 2 Lunokhod rovers, their delivery descent stages, and the descent stages of the sample-return Lunas. I suppose it's also possible that some of the failed Lunas (such as Luna 15) got down without breaking apart completely.
The tall delivery stages of Lunas 9 and 13 might be lying fairly intact on their sides, near the landing sites of the little capsules. And Luna 8 was of the same design and almost made it, so might be still in one piece.
I suspect the tallest object currently sitting on the Moon's surface, and therefore casting the longest man-made shadow on the Moon, is Luna 23 in Mare Crisium. It still has its ascent stage attached due to failure after a successful soft landing.
Kenny
I think you're right, and I look forward to seeing all of these things. The early Luna (8, 9, 13) locations are very uncertain - a, area 50 km across might have to be searched, so they will be very difficult to nail down. The Lunokhods should be a lot easier because we can compare their published route maps with the images to nail down the areas better.
Phil
And, of course, there are five Surveyors on the surface that ought to be visible to LRO's camera. We'll get Surveyor III when the A12 site is imaged, but I'm more looking forward to seeing SI and SVII. We've seen a decent image of SI on the surface from one of the early Lunar Orbiters (LO2, IIRC); I'd like to compare that image with an LRO image. And it will be very, very useful to see the SVII site from orbit at LRO resolution, since we may someday want to land manned or unmanned probes in similar terrain; it'll be nice to be able to characterize "safe" landing areas in such apparently rugged terrain.
-the other Doug
My special interest among the Surveyors is Surveyor 5, because it was the only one not precisely located by Ewen Whitaker at the time. I have a prediction, but it will be nice to see if it's correct. Surveyor 7 will also be really nice, as you say. Will Surveyor 6's 'hop' blast marks be visible?
Phil
Here's a little finding guide for Surveyor 1, based on the scanned LO images at LPI:
Is the LRO team indeed hiding something from us? I noticed something interesting at NasaWatch.com and this makes me wonder - the website hasn't been updated for about 11 days.
I'm having LRO image withdrawl symptoms too, but I'm sure they're not hiding anything. We have been so spoiled by the rapid release of MER and CASSINI images these past few years that we take it for granted, and sometimes expect too much of the people behind these missions.
"I noticed something interesting at NasaWatch.com "
Noticed something silly might be a better way to put it. There's a difference between not having released something yet and refusing to release something. (Idle thought... what would Perez Hilton call Keith Cowing? It could only be K-Cow!)
I have no doubt the images will be released, and the mosaic too. As it was made for Constellation, they would probably be the people to release it. Another point - image release isn't an essential service, so the staff responsible may be short-handed due to vacation time etc. Very little ever happens at my university in August. The mission is flooding the team with data, they have their hands full.
Phil
Have they release every single image taken?
No.
Have they released plenty of images given that they're still in a comissioning phase?
Yes.
We know they intended to make a quick and dirty polar mosaic for the LCROSS team. It's not going to be a nice outreach product. It's not going to be especially earth shattering ( as we have polar mosaics from several missions already, at similar resolutions). Quite what grounds for bitching Cowing has this time, I don't know. But he doesn't usually need a reason.
Yes - I also remember that very few images from MRO were released before they reached the final orbit We have much more LROC images compared to that.
By the way - I read somewhere that a teleconference is scheduled for today. Probably something may come out later today.
I can't help giving a little head shake and "humph!" whenever this comes up. We are SO spoiled nowadays. Back it t'olden days when a probe saw something new we had to make do with a couple of pictures on that night's News At Ten, then we had to wait literally months to see any others, when they'd be shown on a special episode of HORIZON or reproduced in ASTRONOMY or SKY AND TELESCOPE. I have rather less than fond memories of recording the TV news and Sky At Night coverage of the Voyager 2 Uranus and Neptune fly-bys then photographing my tv screen, after pausing the tape, and using the slides in my schools and community Outreach talks.
Now... well... raw image galleries, downloadable hi-res jpgs, Quicktimes, animations, all available days if not hours after the event...
Patience, young Jedis, all will be well.
... and as if by magic, a new LROC image appears - lovely view of a sinuous rille on the Aristarchus Plateau.
Phil
I couldn't get it last night but I can now.
There are some nice rolling rock trails on the walls of the main valley, both north and south sides. I'm also struck by how smooth the surface looks compared with typical mare surfaces. This is a place that would be easy to land on.
Phil
Nice trails. We're starting to see the Moon like never before.
I find it difficult to evaluate the size of the blocks. The LROC image browser lacks a scale bar. Even if the pixel size is mentioned, I don't find it very useful. I suppose I could download the TIFF files and count the pixels, but they are large files. Sometimes with Photoshop (version 7) I could not open them.
A new image on the LROC image browser: Necho crater. This looks like a really recent crater. Blocks, cracks everywhere.
http://wms.lroc.asu.edu/lroc_browse/view/M103703826LE
'We have been so spoiled by the rapid release of MER and CASSINI images these past few years that we take it for granted, and sometimes expect too much of the people behind these missions.'
Is the release of raw JPEGS something we are 'spoiled' by or should it be regarded as standard PR outreach for missions that should be routinely done? Is there any plan to release quantities of raw jpegs of Lunar orbit images once the mapping orbit is finalized?
Don
That Necho image is just about the most amazing yet. Emily wrote about bouncing rocks on her blog - well, check out the chains of pits - must have been bouncing! - at the southernmost part of the visible wall of Necho in this image. And the melt textures - really beautiful.
Phil
Um, yeah -- my swear jar overfloweth!
The thing that strikes me, though, is that you could land a LM (or a Constellation lander) on the floor of that crater! There are lots of places that are flat and smooth enough for a vehicle to land. You'd have to be real careful where you walked and/or drove, but it could easily be done. And would be incredibly spectacular!
And check out some of those rocks! There are rocks in there (and especially on the rim) that make House Rock look like a pebble!
-the other Doug
It would be fantastic if it became routine, or even a requirement, for all umsf missions to let us see raw images asap, but in the real world that's not gonna happen.
I hold American missions to a higher standard in PR outreach than ESA. How hard or expensive is it to release raw jpegs? If it is a matter of expense I certainly understand, if it is a matter of policy I do not.
Don
And now a stealth LROC release... if I can call it that. This page for the MiniSAR instrument has an LROC image of Erlanger, the crater used for the bistatic radar experiment yesterday. - and the MiniSAR mosaic which is also the new LPOD.
Phil
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/Mini-RF/multimedia/index.html
There have been some wonderful images released to date. The ones I'm really looking forward to though will be those that cover the other four sites chosen along with the site that became Tranquility Base as the possible location of the first Apollo landing.
Re: Necho
Wow...wow -- at highest zoom level on the crack(?) regions one gets the impression of looking at crevases on an ice-sheet.
Coincidentally, had been looking up Necho in relation to its ray systems yesterday (where it meets another ray system from Giordano Bruno to its north-west), so came across some other info and images (no comparison to LROC's, obviously).
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/mapcatalog/topophoto/83B4S1/.
http://www.keithlaney.net/ApolloOrbitalimages/AS10/AS10-28-4012.jpg.
http://www.bu.edu/remotesensing/documents/elbaz1-500/125-160/158.pdf by Gifford, Maxwell and El-Baz.
John
TY for great Necho links (I've got iterested in today), John!
SB
http://wms.lroc.asu.edu/lroc_browse/view/M10463421LE
This was released just prior to the Necho one and on the same day. As can be seen it has really nice resolution/contrast tracks visible at the Apollo 14 site. Of course, these were also imaged on a prior pass and discussed, but they still are impressive. The various images I have seen to show these tracks do not do them justice so I magnified them by 2X and used the Geomatica Freeview palette adjustments to improve the contrast.
That 'stealth release' of a few posts back is now on the main LROC site:
http://wms.lroc.asu.edu/lroc_browse
Phil
Thank you James the image is fantastic and so detailed.
http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/news/?archives/97-First-LROC-Stereo-Results.html
NEW image!
It isn´t new this image was taken 12 july 2009 combined with the image is made from apollo 16 http://www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/apollo/
Whatever - sorry, I had to be more specific. This DEM image looks much better than Chandrayaan's DEM images.
A little curiosity from someone who doesn't have the tools to be able to plot LRO's orbit, etc...
All of the images I've seen seem to be taken under mid- to late-afternoon sun angles. All of the images I've seen at low sun angles from other probes (especially LO) were, if memory serves, taken under early- to late-morning sun angles. Is this being done purposely by LRO to vary the lighting angle from other resources? (If so, it makes it that much harder to do photo comparison for detection of new craters.)
Also, why the heck have we yet to see the Apollo 12 landing site, when we've seen multiple takes on a couple of the other Apollo sites? Is it possible that A12 visited a *different* Surveyor than the one advertised...?
-the other Doug
I would never, ever seriously suggest such a thing. But for the only mission where the TV camera wasn't able to transmit any panoramic images from the surface... to keep the idiots and such at bay, they really need to get this image soon.
-the other Doug
"A little curiosity from someone who doesn't have the tools to be able to plot LRO's orbit, etc... All of the images I've seen seem to be taken under mid- to late-afternoon sun angles..."
The orbit plane is fixed. Over the course of a month all lunar longitudes pass under it. But over the course of a year the sub-solar longitude also makes a full circuit of the moon relative to the spacecraft orbit. The very first images were taken practically on the terminator. Right now the spacecraft is seeing the sun much higher over the landscape (about 50 degrees above the horizon at the equator). In a month it will be looking down at noon. Two months after that it will be seeing morning longitudes. And so on. If you look at the LROC targeting spreadsheets, you'll see they said about Apollo sites that they wanted both low and high sun images. So changing sun angles are inevitable. The two Apollo 14 images show the changing sun angles a month apart.
The same applies to Chandrayaan and Kaguya... there were specific seasons for imaging, with other times making more use of other instruments. The multispectral stuff is better done at high sun, the Chandrayaan radar imaging was, I think, done when the imaging was not, and so on.
As for Apollo 12 - be patient! (Those crazies don't even know LRO exists.)
Phil
Nutcases are allowed to post on BAUT, but they will be asked to backup their claims. If they are unable, but continue talking bullcrap they will be booted out from the board.
I'm happy that UMSF is a good place for discussing image processing techniques, mission imagery, science data and not conspiracy theories, how NASA alters the colors of Mars, etc... etc.. But I also have the feeling that this place is starting to get empty. Is this because people like us are already the minority?
I remember that when I was 12 (now I'm 22) I watched the FOX TV production and I almost got convinced that they never walked on the Moon. This didn't last for long. Curiosity killed the cat. After I started learning more and more about space exploration, I understood how silly these theories are. But this is not the big problem. The big problem is that these productions are smartly disguised as "documentaries" so people have the feeling everything said there is true.
As for LROC images - I wondered why the press cared little about them. I do hope they will be included in some kind of documentaries so people interested in the subject will see that there's independent evidence.
I've said it before, here and elsewhere, it really is getting tiring repeating it and it's entirely off topic for this thread and this forum as a whole. However - I'll say it again.
If someone doesn't think we went to the moon, then LROC images are not going to change their mind. Indeed, they're the opposite of 'independent' evidence.
As for this place getting quiet? Visits to UMSF are steady.
Jan, 72k Feb 75k. Mars 79k. Apr 77k. May 88k. Jun 72k. Jul 80k. Aug looks like it'll be about 70-72k.
308 registrations in 2009 so far. 2008 saw 394 in total.
It is natural that when there's not much going up 'up there' - there isn't much going on 'down here'. Spirit's not moved in months, Opportunity has sat infront of a rock for a fortnight. Cassini is quiet after the equinox. September, LRO in final orbit and a Messenger flyby. October, LCROSS. November, two Enceladus flybys and a Rosetta Earth Flyby. etc etc. And hopefully - Opportunity foot to the floor and Spirit kicking up the dirt in the not too distant future.
May wee.
If I remember my high school French from 37 years ago, I believe it runs:
Janvier
Fevrier
Mars
Avril
Juin
Julliet
Aout (sorry, don't have an easy way to add diacriticals here)
Septembre
Octobre
Novembre
Decembre
And the days of the week are:
Lundi
Mardi
Mercredi
Judi
Vendredi
Samedi
Demansche
Spelling could be atrociously wrong, of course...
-the other Doug
And May is to be found about 1800 miles off the coast of Brittany
New? M104061987RE.tif image on http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/data/pr/tiff/?C=M;O=A
Does someone know how the code is build off ?
M = month
1= day
0=?
4=Orbit height
..
..
re=right
etc etc
Can't find an explonation on the Nasa site.
Just move the cursor over "Name", "Last modified", "Size" and "Description". C is the field to sort on, O is the order, A for ascending and D for descending. No orbital mechanics involved
The new image 2amazing mentioned is now on the LROC browse page. It's in Balmer, a big smooth-plains-floored basin near the limb, and one of the Constellation priority targets.
http://wms.lroc.asu.edu/lroc_browse
Here's a crop... ejecta blocks south of the fresh crater. Some of them hit the ground with enough horizontal velocity to roll away from the crater - these are the first boulder tracks I've ever seen away from steep slopes (Hey James!)
There's a nice image at the Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project site comparing a Lunar Orbiter III high-res shot of the Apollo 14 landing site with the latest LROC image. It's very easy to see the changes imparted to the site from Apollo 14!
http://images.spaceref.com/news/2009/14.compare.close.l.jpg
M104061987RE.tif
M=moon
104061987 = time in minutes?
How can you calculate whitch time/date this picture was taken.
The 104th of June, 1987?
More likely it's a count of seconds since some time which is probably specified somewhere in the documentation. But I prefer the idea that it's the 104th of June.
Phil
It's certainly counting up in seconds. I usually just make an Excel spreadsheet that takes the time quoted on an official release and the MET and then set up a formula that can calculate the date for any MET. But for LROC it doesn't really seem to be necessary, since they're putting the UTC time on all the Zoomify images. For instance http://wms.lroc.asu.edu/lroc_browse/view/M104061987RE which we're told is from Tue Aug 04 14:51:59 UTC 2009. Taking the whole nine-digit number as the date, it counts up from April 18, 2006, but I think it's more likely that the first digit isn't part of the counter, so it counts up from June 18 at 14:32:12. This was exactly 7 hours before launch. Maybe that was when they booted the spacecraft computer?
--Emily
Hai Emily
Not every file and images match this methode.
Sometimes the date is not correct or time
See excel attachment.
I played with the images a little and did some basic editing, basically (but not limited to) reducing noise, sharpening and increasing contrast. Not as good as you can do it, but at least I tried. Imageshack and GIMP tricks.
Edit : Second photo
Answer by e-mail from webmaster http://lroc.sese.asu.edu 30/08/09 11:27 PM
New image...
http://wms.lroc.asu.edu/lroc_browse/view/M103668324R
Zoom in... and in... and in... until your jaw hits the floor, or your face hits the boulders, whichever happens first..!
A fantastic new picture today, Tsiolkovsky's central peak, with approximately a zillion boulder trails...
The caption ask the question - are the blocks from the peaks, or were they thrown there by distant impacts? I think we can safely say they are local. If rocks were thrown around as the question implies, flat areas would be covered with them too. But on the flat areas away from fresh craters and slopes they are rare. And rocks scattered all over this region could hardly collect preferentially on steep slopes and summits. In fact they should preferentially collect elsewhere because most rocks falling on slopes would roll off immediately.
Phil
These LRO images are purely amazing. Zoomed fully in and sliding around, the images seem to go on forever. I've spent literally half an hour with some of these recent ones (especially the Necho crater) going through constant cycles of "What's over there?" [sliding the mouse] "Oh wow."
Truly amazing.
Here we go again...
People really, I mean really, need to be more patient re image releases. Seriously, compared to The Old Days we are spoiled rotten.
What's everyone's thoughts as to why lots of big boulders like to sit atop lunar mountains ? (except the ones that roll doon!)
Thanks for pointing to these fascinating close ups Stu
The topic doesn't need banning. What needs to happen is people need to stop being so ******* impatient and ungrateful. Yes, it's frustrating not to have EVERY mission release EVERY raw image taken within hours or days of them being taken, like the MER and Cassini missions do, but really, come on, we're not entitled to it, and the people working on these missions are very, very busy. MER broke the mould, but we can't expect every other mould to be broken too.
I went around JPL, saw the people working there, I know just how busy people like them are. Trust me, the people behind space missions have better things to do than make sure enthusiasts like us have a daily fix of pictures to look at when we get *back* from work. We should be grateful for anything and everything we get, and not get all narky when the flow from the data pipe slows down sometimes.
And before anyone says anything, yes, I know the argument about "Well, we've paid for them so we deserve to see them!" but that's not how the world works. "We" also pay for our governments' scientists to develop new medicines, alloys, plastics etc for us, but we don't moan and groan about not having access to their daily lab test results, graphs and meeting minutes, do we? The only difference here is that NASA's missions produce easily-understood, gorgeous pictures that we 1) we can work on on our home computers, and 2) go "oooh!" over when we see them.
No new images from LRO today? Go look at the Cassini raw page and marvel at pictures of Saturn's rings streaked with the tapering shadows of its moons. No new Cassini raw images yet? Go take a look at the SOHO site and enjoy amazing views of coronal mass ejections and solar prominences. No new SOHO images yet? Go take a look at NASA's Planetary Photojournal, where you'll find new images from other missions... If nothing there takes your fancy, go back to Exploratorium and click on some of the links to raw image pages you missed because you were busy that day, there'll be something new for you to see there. Then there are blogs from mission scientists to read, papers to download, podcasts to listen to. Come on people! The internet is a Stargate we can all step through. We're spoiled for choice!
I don't want to dampen anyone's enthusiasm for image viewing and armchair exploring but seriously, I wish I had a time machine, so I could take some of the young 'uns here back to the days of Voyager, when we had to wait literally months before we were able to drool over encounter images...
Can we move on please. Further posts on this will be deleted.
A look at the bigger picture
God, it would be damn difficult to scan the whole floor of this huge crater
Two nice boulder tracks on Tsiolkovskiy's peak. I like the one made by the elongated boulder.
Here's a spectacular group of huge boulders near the top of Tsiolkovskiy's peak. Must be quite a scenery seen from the ground. Can you imagine yourself hiking in there?
I can imagine some 1/6 g rock scrambling and bouldering going on there! Looking at such rough terrain makes me wonder if there are any (much) smaller versions of the permanantly shadowed craters at the poles? A crevice or crater in the middle of such an outcrop would be sheltered from sunlight at comparatively low lattitudes I imagine.
That's a very interesting point. In effect it's what the Apollo 16 astronauts looked for at Shadow Rock, south of North Ray crater, but that was really not a very good candidate. One objection to the idea of volatiles collecting in a crevice in a rock pile is that they may not last long enough. Small impacts probably break up boulders often enough that the crevices change or disappear, or get filled with ejecta, on too short time scales. Still, it's certainly possible. Makes me wonder about the much-talked-about idea of lava tubes as habitats - would they contain ice patches too?
Phil
I'd think so... in fact seeing as how easy it would be to make a lunar cold trap there should be a lot of them in various forms. It'd just be a case of picking the oldest and least disturbed. An ancient cold trap that got hit by a meteorite would probably leave a fingerprint of volatile species in the lunar exosphere.
here is a context image for the Tsiolkovskiy image...I am not sure were to lay the strip, but I see now why there are boulder tracks and collections of boulders
http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/news/?archives/103-Who-slammed-the-barn-door.html
New featured image. Measuring jitter.
Surely...the jitter-bug
Those LROC guys just don't get in enough dance routines in between uploading images, I'm thinking
John
A new image: Timocharis crater.
http://wms.lroc.asu.edu/lroc_browse/view/M102242995R
New data from all LRO instruments are expected to be released on Thursday... should be good!
Phil
Really? Awesome. Guess I'll have something productive to do during our Thursday morning staff meeting
--Emily
A nice new image of part of Shackleton at LROC today.
Phil
COOL. Thanks for the heads up. I love the "The full NAC mosaic reveals a shelf on the southeast flank of the crater that is more than two kilometers across and perfectly suitable for a future landing."
--Emily
... though I'm not sure what "southeast" means in this context.
Phil
Earth must be generally towards the bottom of the image, from the location of the pole.
Phil
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Press Conference.
In case anybody missed it (like me) - an ASF video file can be downloaded at -
116 MB ASF file
http://www.space-multimedia.nl.eu.org/
or
http://bit.ly/Ahe4Y
Also replay tomorrow on http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/MM_NTV_Breaking.html
12:00 GMT
September 18, Friday
8 a.m. Eastern Time - Replay Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Press Conference - GSFC (Public and Media Channels)
Jack
Comparing the MiniRF mosaic and the LOLA topo map... the big massifs in the LOLA map, the red areas (they are South Pole-Aitken basin ring mountains) look unusually dark in the MiniRF. I don't see it as just topographic shading, but can't figure out what it is yet.
Phil
New image of Mare Insularum is up... now that's what I call a shadow!
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Anyone trying to download the entire 504 Mb file should note the name is incorrect. It is...
http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/data/pr/tiff/nacl00001431.tif.tif
I'am still waiting on new images with a high resolution in low orbit
Last relaesed image 25-aug.
Why must we wait so long for data? In 1969 we have live tv from the moon.
Of is there a direct link too these images?
Patience! They have released plenty of images already. The new ones from half the height will not look very different for most targets. If you check the LRO website, the Operations Journal, you can read this:
"My name is Andrew, and I am currently an undergraduate Industrial, Systems and Operations Engineering student at Arizona State University, where LROC operations are based. At LROC, I am currently employed as the web developer. This means I am the person who is primarily responsible for maintaining, developing and making updates and additions to the LROC website (as well as other websites for associated projects)."
Bearing in mind that they are getting a Niagara of data every day, and the website is updated by a busy student, I think they are doing a great job already. There's just too much downlink to have every image, every day the way MER does it.
Phil
A new image has been posted: a spectacular oblique limb view:
http://wms.lroc.asu.edu/lroc_browse/view/M106797147
"nother LRO image
http://wms.lroc.asu.edu/lroc_browse/view/M104419352R
"The linear rille Rima Ariadaeus is found on the nearside of the Moon, nestled between Mare Tranquillitatis and Mare Vaporum."
Ooohh!! "Apollo 11 Second Look"...
http://wms.lroc.asu.edu/lroc_browse/view/M104362199R
Cool! And still in the commissioning orbit, so the final views will be twice as good.
Phil
So ... what's best for finding the actual site with Stu's Zoomify link?
This is something like 'Where's Waldo' to me
Over on the dedicated LRO/Apollo landing site images thread I posted a link to a pic that will help you find the landing site
Three LROC images have been released in the last week or so.
http://wms.lroc.asu.edu/lroc_browse
Are we getting bored already, or maybe the images are not spectacular enough? Anyway, they are not arousing much response here. Spoiled kids that we are!
http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/news/?archives/122-Ejecta-sweeps-the-surface.html
This looks like the first image from the lower orbit to be released. Very high sun, so no shadows but interesting albedo variations.
Phil
Very bright impact ejecta which is natural for fresh craters. Wonder what the spectrometers will tell us about composition
Holy cow! I'm awfully cynical about the moon sometimes (boring old atmosphere-less dry rock with hardly any volcanoes to liven things up), but these are just gorgeous. Who needs shadows?
http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/news/?archives/126-Asymmetric-Ejecta.html
You missed this
Asymmetric ejecta
Fabulous collection of rolling and bouncing boulder trails on the latest LROC image...
http://wms.lroc.asu.edu/lroc_browse/view/M107985155LE
Phil
Rolling rock alert, James!
http://wms.lroc.asu.edu/lroc_browse/view/M104227032L
Phil
Distance rolled would depend on whether it's travelling under gravity down a slope (maybe after being dislodged by a quake or ground shaking from a nearby impact ), or whether it's an ejecta boulder with sideways kinetic energy addtional to anything deriving from gravity. Thrown stones skipping across a pond come to mind...
Another rolling boulder...
http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/news/?archives/134-Bright-Boulder-Trail.html
But unlike any lunar image I've ever seen before. LROC is amazing - it's like a whole new moon.
I think slope processes like those on view all over this image are some of the most visually striking things we're seeing in these images.
Phil
That's an interesting one. You can see what look like several older boulder trails as well in the image.
Wonder if we'll get lucky & get some before & after shots of an event. This looks like something that happens relatively frequently!
We even get one seen close by by Apollo 17! Do we know when this one rolled down?
I seem to recall that the huge boulder at Taurus Littrow in that well-known Apollo 17 photo, was thought to be an ejecta block - so was 'flung' rather than rolled into position.
I'm not aware of any statement like that in the literature.
Phil
My earlier speculation on the movement of the Apollo 17 Morth Massif Split Rock and its descent trail was that it has moved as a result of incremental thermal creep, by preferential expansion in the downhill direction of least soil resistance, due to heating in the lunar day. The slope there seems to me not to be steep enough for such an enormous and unevenly shaped boudler to roll (when it was one piece before it split apart).
If this is correct, or at least plausible, we may have 3 methods of boulder transport which leave trails, in decreasing order of speed:
"The slope there seems to me not to be steep enough "
Do you mean the slope at Station 6, where the rock is now? That's where it stopped rolling, not where it started, so we might expect it to be 'not steep enough' to roll.
Phil
I mean my general impression of the immediate part of the slope leading down to the boulder at Station 6, over which the rock rolled or slid, apparently gouging out a deep track or channel. The boulder track is evident as a sort of channel leading towards the boulder from the right side of this pan. The astronauts walked through this channel, as their footprints show.
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a17/a17.1653338_pan.jpg
My admiitedly superficial impression is that the general slope angle is low for a gravity roll, but as you say, it ran out of energy and stopped here, perhaps for that reason. However, the depth of the track is very considerable, and I wonder if such a depth could really have been made by a boulder rolling over the surface - as opposed to my alternative thought that it was a partially embedded boulder moving downhill by creep over long periods of time.
http://cumbriansky.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/lroc_a17_station_6-p-stooke.jpg
I can't find your orginal post of this picture, but the above is a re-post. Looking at it again, I think seeing the track from above does suggest the rolling of an irregular boulder rather than the uniform track width which the "ploughing boulder" might generate.
So I'm coming back to a rolling stone (!).... but still curious as to whether the ploughing boulder pehnomenon, caused by thermal expansion creep, might be seen elsewhere on the moon.
Well done for finding that significant reference!
Science is natural selection... the evolution of ideas.
Very atypical picture, I can't recognize that this is a photo of the Moon. Looks rather like Mars image.
http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/news/uploads/LROCiotw/M110383422L_fi.png
Oh, Lunar gullies. Dry or wet?
http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/news/index.php?/archives/141-Landslides-in-Marius-Crater.html
An interesting oblique view across the N rim of Cabeus crater:
http://wms.lroc.asu.edu/lroc_browse/view/M109937747
This isn't LROC... sorry! But check out a new radar image:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/Mini-RF/multimedia/featured_image_20091110.html
Phil
You want boulders? Here ya go...
http://wms.lroc.asu.edu/lroc_browse/view/M109305653LE
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That camera is incredible. Has it re-imaged any of the gullies in the old lunar pictures, to compare to martian gully morphology?
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2006/pdf/1345.pdf for discussion of Moon gullies in photos taken by Lunar Orbiter V (1967.) They superficially resemble martian gullies, which therefore (per the author) could be dry landslides.
Maybe so, but Stu, you put up a HiRISE-imaged colorization of a martian gully with an island in it. Bet they don't find that on the Moon.
Again not LROC, but I'm not sure we need a radar thread...
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/Mini-RF/multimedia/featured_image_20091119.html
Nice radar images of craters, not polar but interesting. Comparisons between these and polar shadow craters may be useful later on.
Phil
Some great new presentations about LRO among other things here:
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/leag2009/presentations/index.shtml
See especially two presentations by Mark Robinson, one with high resolution LROC images of the interior of Shackleton.
Phil
A new image showed up on the LROC site: interesting debris flows and more rolling boulders.
http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/
Yes, I love the debris flows on this one, especially on the right side.
Phil
One thing from the LEAG presentations - the first LROC data release to PDS will be mid-March 2010. That will be fun!
Phil
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And very shortly thereafter, watch for Moon Zoo from some of the same folks who brought you Galaxy Zoo. Craters and boulders and peaks, oh my!
If you go to the main LROC page:
http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/
and mouse over the featured image, you see that it's now referred to as 'Image of the Week' . Uh-oh - not a good sign. C'mon LROC, you can do better than that! And after I'd defended you so much in the past as well.
On the bright side, we might see some releases for the AGU meeting.
Phil
LROC NAC Image Prerelease
Over 700 NAC frames in PDS EDR format are now available for download:
http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/data/LRO-L-LROC-2-EDR-PRERELEASE/COM/
Browse (tiff)
http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/data/LRO-L-LROC-2-EDR-PRERELEASE/EXTRAS/BROWSE
Darn! I'm travelling and can't play with these new images. But obviously lots of goodies here. I'll get into them in the new year.
PS check out the LEAG presentations at the LPI website... a couple were added recently, including a great one by Mark Robinson with a fab high sun image of Apollo 16.
Phil
I downloaded the metadata file accompanying the new LROC release and plotted the locations of images (very roughly - only meant as a rough guide) - the things I wanted are not here but lots of other stuff is. The browse images are 50% resolution,which is pretty good. I'd love a clickable map interface!
Phil
Nice LROC image of Apollo 16 with a high sun angle. This is from Mark Robinson's presentation at LEAG last fall.
Phil
Mare Orientale viewed with high resolution.
1. Lunar Orbiter 4 - image 4184_med
2. Lunar Orbiter 4 - image 4195_h1
3. Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter - image M102788040RE_pyr
At last! My favorite: the floor of Tycho crater imaged by LROC
http://wms.lroc.asu.edu/lroc_browse/view/M102230053LE
Lots of interesting structures.
Beautiful! But not such a good place to drive around in..
Phil
Oh my God! It's full of ..... boulders!
And a lot of dust too. Beautiful certainly but traversing it would be quite a challenge alright.
Some of those cracks in the regolith remind me a lot of those on Enceladus (a great indication of just how fresh Tycho is).
There's a new LROC pre-release out today. I downloaded the metadata file and plotted image locations - here's a map. Most of the new stuff is over the far side, including SPA.
Phil
In quite a lot of the polar images I find I can see details in the shadows in LROC images. It will be good to see the LCROSS area at LROC resolution... or Lunar Prospector.
Phil Stooke
Simplest explanation is internal reflections etc. within the camera. If the levitated lunar dust were that obvious - we'd have amateur astronomers seing it all the time from the Earth.
Yes, Doug - and also proper calibration, subtracting dark images etc - personally I think the dust issue is being exaggerated. In general, not in James's post.
Phil
(very crudely! hah!) stitched together some screengrabs from a wander across this rather fascinating image...
"Impact Melt Flow NE of Byrgius A Crater" http://wms.lroc.asu.edu/lroc_browse/view/M102573276L
Now that is astonishing - it must be one of the freshest non-bombardment features on the moon? There's hardly a crater on it... it looks Hawaii.
Speaking of which, I can't recall if any "fresh" natural lunar craters have been spotted yet. Have any of the orbiters found any clearly new craters since orbital surveys were started?
I suppose you are talking about natural craters, and not those that were created by the various pieces of hardware that were crashed on the Moon on purpose by humans.
It would mean comparing Lunar Orbiter and Apollo metrics with LRO or Kaguya images.
Maybe we can try to find http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/13jun_lunarsporadic.htm in LROC images.
That comparison will be done, but it hasn't been done (or reported on) yet - we may get some news at LPSC.
Phil
Charbob,
Thanks for that link! I went ahead and took their GIF animation and stacked it to try to locate the strike.
One thing that might affect recent crater detection is that the 'background noise' of impacts on the Moon is much higher than that of Mars: very few indigenous surface modification mechanisms with considerably less regional influence that just that of Mars' minimal atmosphere.
Still, LRO should theoretically find a few, esp. if there's to be a series of extended missions. I wonder what effect the Earth has on the modern lunar cratering rate; we're kind of the Jupiter-wannabe in the inner solar system, after all.
This isn't LROC, but we're in a lull in LROC data release while the ASU website is down. So instead, here are a couple of recent releases from the Mini-RF imaging radar:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/Mini-RF/multimedia/featured_image_Herodotus.html
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/Mini-RF/multimedia/featured_image_Hadley_Rille.html
It's a very nice instrument. I'm looking forward to seeing the full resolution data from the LCROSS site and other areas like that - Lunar Prospector too.
Phil
The LROC website is still down, though it should be fixed very soon. Meanwhile people might find this new gallery of LRO releases (mostly LROC but including others as well) useful.
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/multimedia/lroimages/LROMoonImages_archive_1.html
There is also a bit of raw Diviner data here:
http://www.diviner.ucla.edu/data.html
Phil
Lava tube "skylight" spotted..?
They showed another one at LPSC, in Mare Tranquillitatis, where the sun reached the bottom in a small area. I think it was about 100 m across and 100 m deep. Not released yet.
Phil
The second LROC release is now available via the PDS.
http://pds-imaging.jpl.nasa.gov/
Phil
No, not yet, and I wasn't planning to make one, hoping it would just magically appear instead.
Phil
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