LROC news and images Options

[Phil Stooke]

Hi James - That abstract is talking about skylight-type features. I'm looking at what I think are small Ina-like features. Here's another one, the 5th I've found in Tranquillitatis.





With Ina and the similar features in Hyginus crater there are seven known examples (single pits or groups of them). I have not found any in other parts of the Moon yet.

Phil

[James Fincannon]

Hi James - That abstract is talking about skylight-type features. I'm looking at what I think are small Ina-like features. Here's another one, the 5th I've found in Tranquillitatis.

With Ina and the similar features in Hyginus crater there are seven known examples (single pits or groups of them). I have not found any in other parts of the Moon yet.

Those are quite interesting and different. May I ask you how you handle discoveries of this type? In peer review science, it seems a long process before such discoveries are released via expensive journals. There does not seem to be an international lunar feature registry to post the discovery to (correct me if I am wrong). I mean, its nice to be recognized for the discovery since it takes alot of time or luck or both to find something. Do you feel that by posting to a site like this one, then this is good enough for priority? At MoonZoo for instance most posters seem anonymous which I find odd since I thought they might want some credit for a finding/discovery.

[Phil Stooke]

I will write up something on this soon. I'm not concerned about priority, I'm just enjoying the search and the pleasure of finding something not previously reported. Moonzoo would be another option, but I prefer UMSF. The ideal place for cataloguing various items like this would be the Moon Wiki, I think. It's linked to from LPOD.

Phil

[Bill Harris]

In a similar and related topic, MESSENGER is discovering extensive Ina-like features on Mercury:

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...mp;#entry178851

--Bill

[Phil Stooke]

I now have 13 distinct sites on the moon with these curious 'hollows' - writing something up for LPSC.

Phil

[john_s]

Very cool! One question- is it possible that these features (or some of them) are simply kipukas - regions that happened not to be covered by the most recent lava flows and so are surrounded by a flow margin? I don't *think* they look like kipukas, but I wondered if you'd considered that possibility?

John

[Phil Stooke]

Yes, considered, - but they don't seem to surround high points, even very subtle ones, in fact they sometimes surround depressions. To my amazement Pete Schultz said exactly the same about the few seen in lunar Orbiter images in his book 'Moon Morphology'.

Phil

[Phil Stooke]

A new cluster of 'hollows' has now turned up in Mare Serenitatis, just north of Sulpicius Gallus. Here is one part of it.

Phil

[ngunn]

I notice that several of the fresher craters in that view seem to expose a layer of bright material partway down their inner slopes. In fact at first glance the depth to the bright layers looks not dissimilar to the depth of the hollows. I wonder if the two things could be related??

[Phil Stooke]

Something similar was pointed out in one of the Mercury cases. Maybe there is a link.

Phil

[FordPrefect]

Hey, a new digital elevation map has been released!!! Global maps with nearly 100m/pixel resolution!


http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/news/?archives/48...efore!.html

Whohoo, I've been waiting so long for such a map. What a great day! Lunartastic!

[kwan3217]

Would anyone care to comment on the difference between the stereo pair map just released and the LOLA map? Is there any reason to prefer one to the other? Does the data from one instrument help making a map with the other? Is there going to be a single grand unified map made from both laser and stereo pair data?

[elakdawalla]

The LROC team anticipated most of your questions. Carefully read the text at the link, and you'll find out how LOLA data was used to aid the production of the LROC map.

[john_s]

It looks from the description that LOLA was used only to (1) refine the LRO orbit solution and (2) fill in the map at the poles. So apart from the poles, the two topographic products are completely independent. Comparison of the two will indeed be interesting. I'm impressed that stereo alone can produce a map of this apparent fidelity.

John

[JohnVV]

Comparison of the two will indeed be interesting.

i just got done making a Celestia VT 64 k map using the LRO-WAC
for a compassion see:
http://www.shatters.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=16522

a cleaned up version of the 256 ppd lola

and the 256 lro-wac dem

an example of the NOT cleaned up lola

and a NEW LRO-WAC dem ( same crater as above )