And don't forget, ESA will claim in every picture they release that they have made the exciting new discovery that the Moon's craters get smaller and smaller as you get closer and closer...



-the other Doug

oDougal:

No, no, *these* craters are big, but far away. And *those* craters are small, but close by. Yes, Mrs Doyle, what is it?

Bob Shaw

I don't think I've visited a forum where "small.....faaaaar away" hasn't come up at least twice. Fundamentally, it's the reason I set this place up, so I could have further excuses to quote Python and Father Ted

Doug

Yet another SMART-1 image - actually a mosaic -at:

http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object/in...fobjectid=38921

Phil

Oh! All Praise Blessed ESA!

We, your humble taxpayers, thank you for the signal boon of yet another four glorious images, miraculously transformed into a never-before-imagined mosaic of stunning and unmatched quality!

We are not worthy!

We are not worthy!

Bob Shaw

New image today.

Tectonic ‘wrinkles’ in Crater De Gasparis
http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/SMART-1/SEME93OVGJE_0.html

This image is a comparison of SMART-1 and Clementine to show the differences in resolution and illumination. The large crater is De Gasparis, the most recent released image. I'm not sure if we will have global coverage like this, but it will be a very nice dataset when it is eventually released. As I understand it, global coverage from LRO will not be significantly better than this. Only small areas will be seen at very high resolution by LRO, like MOC at Mars.

Phil

Click to view attachment

More images here....

Phil

http://www.space-x.ch/news.htm

And here are the images which Phil pointed us at:

Bob Shaw

SMART-1 performed a tracking observation on Reiner Gamma

http://smart.esa.int/science-e/www/object/...fobjectid=39022

Very interesting: "The area also coincides with a strong magnetic anomaly."
Should we go to check if a monolith wait for us?

Very cool. What's the little dark spot in the bottom right corner that moves "up" during the animation?

That's the UFO taking off from the secret underground landing facility, of course. Richard Hoagland will tell you all about it, once he gets back from his weekend in the 6th dimension.

The ESA web page mentions that, apart from Reiner Gamma, there are two other anomalous swirl features on the Moon. I only knew of RG - anyone know which the others are?





Bruce:

No! No! You'll bring them here!

Quick, read this sign!

Bob Shaw

The other two swirl areas are more distributed arrangements of smaller bright swirls, lacking a single feature as large and contrasty as Reiner Gamma itself. Also they are not in such open mare areas, so less visible against a rougher background.

One is in the Mare Marginis area roughly antipodal to Orientale. The second is in the Mare Ingenii area on the far side, roughly antipodal to the Imbrium basin.

The antipodal arrangement is possibly related to their origin. One suggested mechanism is as follows: a large impact creates a large ejecta plume which spreads out in all directions. Eventually it closes on itself around the antipodal point. The ejecta thus is somewhat concentrated at the antipodal point. That ejecta traps the magnetic field associated with the solar wind (or maybe the contemporary lunar field) causing a magnetic anomaly. The swirls are associated with both the ejecta and the magnetic anomaly. I don't pretend to understand the mechanism in detail.

The spot is a flaw in the CCD (or similar artifact). It's really at the same pixel location in every image.

Phil

Phil:

Thanks for that. Any idea whether there have been searches at other - eg farside - antipodes to big impacts?

Bob Shaw

Won't work any more, Bob. Had you continued to read the comics, you'd know that Mxy dropped that rule back around 1988 -- now he leaves when he damn well feels like it, and not before. (Even he has some limits, though, so I'll refrain from my initial plan to repeat H******d's name three more times in this message.)

Bob, regarding other possible antipodal swirls: I'm sure they have been searched for, but the pre-Clementine images would have been limited in quality and I'm not up to date with what's been done with Clementine. If they really are associated with ejecta, older swirls associated with some other basins would likely have been destroyed by later impacts. For instance, putative Crisium swirls would be destroyed by the Orientale impact.

Also, if this is the explanation, what produced Reiner Gamma? Still not at all clear.

Phil

Reiner Gamma swirl: magnetic effect of a cometary impact?

This animation, made from images taken by the Advanced Moon Imaging Experiment
(AMIE) on board ESA’s SMART-1 spacecraft, shows a feature characterized by
bright albedo, and called Reiner Gamma Formation.

Read more:

http://www.esa.int/esaSC/SEM05FNFGLE_index_0.html

Interesting ljk-4 article.

So, the Reiner Gamma Formation could be an interesting site for future human exploration because of the radiation deflected from the surface. Further testing of this hypothesis requires access to the physical properties of the surface to constrain the mechanisms of formation of the lunar swirls. This is an ongoing task for the AMIE camera, aimed at studying regolith photometric properties.

This will lead as a possiblity place to set up a moon base since that zone might have deflaction properties of solar radiation. What else can be explained of the bright spots of Moon surface since Moon has no aeolian force to clean the dirty surface and the only possibility is of the magnetic field. This means that the sun radiation is getting dirtier to moon surface....So this must be a interesting hypothesis and it is worth to be confirmed.

Rodolfo

Rodolfo:

I don't think there's any evidence for current deflection of debris or interference with radiation etc - what we see is a snapshot in time.

Bob Shaw

I have enclosed an article from: http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/re...irl.html?742006

So, it was suggested that the Reiner Gamma swirls correspond to magnetised materials in the crust or iron-rich ejecta materials able to deflect the solar wind (constant flow of charged particles coming from the Sun). This would prevent surface materials to undergo maturation processes, and so produce an optical anomaly.

So, the Reiner Gamma Formation could be an interesting site for future human exploration because of the radiation deflected from the surface. Further testing of this hypothesis requires access to the physical properties of the surface to constrain the mechanisms of formation of the lunar swirls. This is an ongoing task for the AMIE camera, aimed at studying regolith photometric properties.

However, this case is still an hypothesis, it might be of others factors such as :

Then, the magnetic anomaly would not be the result of an antipodal crustal field generated in the formation process of large impact basins. It would rather arise from local effects during the interaction between the lunar surface and cometary physical environment, with the possibility that the solar wind is locally deflected and contributes to the unusual optical properties.


Phil, do you think that these sites are worth to be explored by any surface robot? What kind of scientific instrument is needed to confirm that hypothesis? An magnetometer?

Rodolfo

Magnetic mapping from orbit is never at very high resolution. It would be scientifically useful to run surface traverses across Reiner Gamma with a magnetometer - on a robotic or crewed rover.

Phil

Latest image posted...http://esamultimedia.esa.int/images/smart_...um_comp_new.jpg

That brings the total images from SMART-1 of the moon on the official site to 16. Woo hoo.

Is there a better site with more SMART-1 images than the official site? I googled for about 1/2 hour but didn't find another site with more images.

Any ideas on the total number of images taken by SMART-1?

Not to mention the poor images quality...

I have the impression it's many tens of thousands.

Pathetic, eh?

Bob Shaw

New image.

SMART-1’s view of Crater Hopmann: on the shoulder of a giant

http://www.esa.int/esaSC/SEM1PPOFGLE_index_0.html

Great mission which doesn't get much attantion in my opinion!
http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/SMART-1/SEM1PPOFGLE_0.html

It is due to the lack of press releases compared to other missions. It may be doing great science, but we have no way to knowwhat it is finding. I predict that when global multispectral mosaics are compiled and released, there will be much more discussion.

Yes, but they'll release them in 2038 at this rate!

Bob Shaw

Look on the bright side: by that time, they'll be able to do wonders in data processing of the acquired imagery!

These two images, taken by the advanced Moon Imaging Experiment (AMIE) on board
ESA’s SMART-1 spacecraft, show the difference between lunar highlands and a mare
area from close by.

Full story:

http://www.esa.int/esaSC/SEMGBM9ATME_index_0.html

You forgot to add that the subject of this rare imagery is the faraway and hitherto unknown orb called Moon.

That's an official release? That the Moon actually has (get this!!) dark and light areas?

Perhaps, in a week or so, when the Moon is a bit fuller, we could all go outside one night and confirm this remarkable ESA fact?

Hopefully SMART-1 will be followed by EXTREMELYINTELLIGENTINDEED-2.

Andy G

I fail to see where in the press release it is they claim credit for "discovering" the dark and light areas so what's all the fuss about?

Seems to me that it's fashionable now to bash SMART-1 press release frequency so everybody feels to need to jump on this wagon.
I have a better candidate -- why don't we attack, for example, the VIMS instrument' s team aboard Cassini instead? I don't see all too many releases from an instrument that supposedly has better visibility through Titan's haze than ISS, but that doesn't seem to bother anyone. Not fashionable enough, I guess...

This image, taken by the advanced Moon Imaging Experiment (AMIE) on board
ESA's SMART-1 spacecraft, shows the central peaks of crater Zucchius.

Full story:

http://www.esa.int/esaSC/SEMVQM9ATME_index_0.html

I completely agree with ugordan on this point. First, in that press release, the purpose is just to illustrate two contrasting terrains. Nothing wrong with that.

And second, there's no actual obligation for scientists to release data as it accumulates. We are spoiled by the daily release from MER and Cassini - and it appears the Cassini daily release was only accepted reluctantly - but frankly we are lucky to have it. A year or so after the end of the mission was generally how it worked for years, and in other disciplines data are often never released for free distribution. I enjoy, and use, the daily releases and really appreciate them, but they aren't a right.

All SMART-1 images will be available eventually. Be patient!

Phil

SMART images are blurried and in fact can be greatly improved through accurate sharpening; herebelow you'll find last releases reprocessed:
Click to view attachment Click to view attachment Click to view attachment

Hey, consider that resolution in m/pixel is always worse than Hubble's moon pictures !.

The very first line on the space science part of the ESA's site is:


...Nice idea. I look forward to being inspired, and to aspire. But at this rate, with SMART-1 I'll perspire then expire before getting the goods.

I saw a press release which I suppose the ESA would call "outreach". But it's not really thrilling the public, is it? A brace of four-month-old pictures and the accompanying blinkin' obvious caption aimed at (what?) a primary-school level audience doesn't, at this point, seem like a worthy return on my, or anyone else's, tax-euros. That's simply not good enough, and I'm a space enthusiast.

Phil went on to mention the difference between this and MER/Cassini releases, suggesting perhaps, that MER/Cassini are different to the traditional norm. Well, I'd agree that it's a relatively novel experience, to be able to fill our hard-drives with new images and data every day, but in the modern world I'd have to ask "why not?" Why not hand out the data to anyone who wants it? Science on that (often raw) data is one thing, but public accessibility to early releases from a publicly funded programme quite another. Surely?


I shall twiddle my thumbs and shut up.

Andy G

I am not really interested in its individual images...it is when they make multispectral maps from them that I will be excited.

I will also say that a lot of the press images seem to be shrunken.

I'm waiting for the altimetry data from LRO! It's remarkable that we have better data for Mars than we do for the Moon. How good will the SMART images be, and what will the total coverage be? How will it compare to the Clementine mapping?

To me, the intertesting thing about SMART-1 was the ion propulsion. It was the second spacecraft to really use ion engines to get somewhere. Deep Space-1 used an American electrostatic ion engine, SMART-1 uses a Russian Hall-effect engine.

The SPD engines (statzionariykh plazmennykh dvigatelyakh )were pioneered by OKB Fakel in the early 1970s, used for station keeping of Meteor and Yamal satellites. Their most powerful engines can produce up to 80 gram-force of thrust and a specific impulse of 3000 sec. That's almost 10 times more efficiency than chemical rocket engines (whcih max out around 400 sec for the best of them).

The Phobos-Grunt mission will contain 3 of the SPD-140 engines. Keeping my fingers crossed that mission will really happen (and actually work).

Resolution of the Clementine cameras at its periapsis of 425 km was 115 m/pixel for the UV/visible camera (6 bands), 178m for the near-IR camera (6 bands), 65 m for the 1-band long-IR camera, and 30 m for the camera associated with the Lidar (5 bands). That periapsis was moved from 30 deg S to 30 deg N over the mission. Apoapsis was 8300 km.

Resolution of SMART-1's AMIE camera (3 bands, all within the range of Clementine's UV/visible camera) at its periapsis of 300 km is 27 m/pixel. Apoapsis is 3000 km. Periapsis was left at the south pole during the primary mission, but has now been moved to 30 deg S.

Area coverage by the two missions can perhaps be guessed at from these figures -- obviously they've covered the Moon's southern hemisphere much better than its northern one.

As for Clementine's Lidar coverage, there's an excellent summary at http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/database/Master...=1994-004A&ex=4 .

Personally, I'm a lot more interested in seeing the results from SMART's near-IR spectrometer (never taken to the Moon before) and its X-ray spectrometer (first map outside a narrow equatorial zone).

Thanks. I've looked at the Clementine LIDAR data. It is too course to be of much use for bumpmapping.

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...indpost&p=45962

A sudden flurry of activity at last from ESA, demonstrating that they had the images all the time:

http://www.esa.int/esaSC/SEMN1GL8IOE_index_0.html

There's 136 images in that movie alone - more than we've seen to date.

Bob Shaw

Imagine if these top-secret images of the Moon had been leaked early. Anarchy!

Damn, Bob, you're right!
They say: "From these distances, a series of images could be obtained with some overlap between them, that allowed to build a mosaic during a good part of the orbit". Partial result should be something like this:
Click to view attachment
These are only 7 frames (I excluded very first ones due to heavy over-exposure); some enlargement was needed on first ones, so spacecraft was in the approaching phase of it's elongated orbit (1000x5000 Km).
Any volunteer wants to complete this work for entire orbit?

...and this is the final portion, showing north polar region between Carpenter and Goja craters:

Marco:

Good stuff!

It's sad that we're reduced to silly things like frame-grabbing, but at least there's something there for us to play with at last.

Bob Shaw

An oblique look on the north lunar far west:
http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/SMART-1/SEM787BUQPE_1.html

Here below an enhanced version (note the strange solarization effect on bright features around the low/left missec box)