SMART-1 impact, September 2006 Options

[djellison]

The crater is expected to be 3 x 10m..... you're not going to see if from the ground. You're not going to see if with Hubble. You're not going to see it until LRO starts mapping at 50cm/pixel in a few years time.

Doug

[garybeau]

True, the actual crater may not be visible, but the ejecta may change the albedo for a much broader area on the order of hundreds of square meters. But even this may not show up with a wide angle view. I look
forward to some high res pictures of the area.

[Phil Stooke]

The Apollo 14 LM ascent stage impacted in a mare area west of the landing site. Its impact crater was not seen, but its ejecta was identified by Ewen Whitaker (Apollo 16 Preliminary Science Report). (just to show that the crater itself need not be visible).

Phil

A is Apollo 12 image AS12-56-8439, showing the location of B. B is part of Apollo 16 metric camera frame 2508 rectified from its original oblique geometry.

[RNeuhaus]

Approximate impact zone:

The impact region lies about two-thirds down, directly above the small gap in the mosaic, just south-east of the small crater Palmieri A in the direction of crater Doppelmayer W

ESA estimates that impact occurred at 46.2º West, 34.4º South.

I have enclosed a pinpoint impact zone:



Rodolfo

[garybeau]

From Space.com article.

"Dust and other material ejected off the Moon were expected to possibly be visible to observers with big telescopes back here on Earth."

[tty]

From Space.com article.

"Dust and other material ejected off the Moon were expected to possibly be visible to observers with big telescopes back here on Earth."

You'd have to be very fast. Dust is ballistic on the Moon.

tty

[Phil Stooke]

It's not easy to compare the CFHT image of the flash with the AMIE map, but using the Consolidated Lunar Atlas as an intermediate step, I think this is the location of the flash:



Almost exactly where it was expected, but maybe slightly east of the expected groundtrack. Of course, the observers will do better, but it's interesting to try.

Phil

[remcook]

some more stuff, including some movies:

http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMC378ZMRE_index_0.html

[Phil Stooke]

This is my current SMART-1 map, as I understand it now, or think I do. The last item to be plugged into my book except for the foreword, which is now being written.

There's a bit of confusion sometimes between periapsis and impact points, but I think I have it sorted out in the top map - B -. White dots are pre-August impact predictions, black dots are August 17 predictions. In the lower image - C -, plotted on an AMIE mosaic (original provided by Bernard Foing with his permission to use it), I show the August 17 and September 2 predictions and what i think is the location of the IR flash seen at CFHT.

Phil

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[remcook]

Fig 363? I am looking forward to your book! It must be well illustrated

[Phil Stooke]

Here is a side by side comparison of an area immediately to the west of the SMART-1 impact point (west of it because the Clementine image doesn't cross the impact site itself).

I'm comparing Lunar Orbiter 4 - the new USGS digital version - with Clementine long-wavelength infrared (LWIR) and AMIE. Warning - this is not a fair comparison for AMIE because it's not raw data. This is just cropped out of the big mosaic of the landing area recently posted. This shows LO4 and Clem at full resolution. The AMIE image is enlarged to match the scale, hence its fuzziness.

It is possible that raw AMIE images would equal the resolution of the other two, or get fairly close, near the periapsis latitude. A few other points can be made - the lighting is reversed from Lunar Orbiter, so areas lost in shadow in Orbiter will be seen in AMIE and vice versa - especially important near the poles. And Orbiter coverage of the farside is inferior to this nearside area, so AMIE will at least equal it in many areas. And the Clem LWIR is only available in narrow strips. So we benefit most by having access to all three types of image. AMIE apparently took 20,000 images. When they are released - and especially if good global mosaics are constructed - they will be a very useful addition to lunar databases. And let's not forget that, although several other orbiters are planned, we don't know how many will actually fly successfully.

Phil

[RNeuhaus]

It is evident that Clementine LWIR has better pictures than Lunar Orbiter 4 and the ones of AMIES looks fuzzier due to the stretch scratch process. Anyway, all of these pictures are of black & white or the Moon has inhereted to only two colores: black and white.

The morphology of Lunar surface has made me to be inquietant. Its tendency of forming the surface does not agree to others places such as Earth and Mars in which they surface are constantly eroded by others process.

Rodolfo
P.D.Corrected the expresion.

[djellison]

due to the scratch process

Scratch process?

Doug

[RNeuhaus]

Scratch process?

Doug

Already corrected --> Stretch

Thanks, Rodolfo

[djellison]

Well - I'll still ask the same question - why do the images look fuzzy because of a 'stretch' process?

Doug