Using a NASA radar flying aboard India’s Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, scientists are getting their first look inside the moon’s coldest, darkest craters.
The Mini-SAR instrument, a lightweight, synthetic aperture radar, has passed its initial in-flight tests and sent back its first data. The images show the floors of permanently-shadowed polar craters on the moon that aren’t visible from Earth. Scientists are using the instrument to map and search the insides of the craters for water ice. The images, taken on November 17, 2008, cover part of the Haworth crater at the moon’s south pole and the western rim of Seares crater, an impact feature near the north pole. Bright areas in each image represent either surface roughness or slopes pointing toward the spacecraft. Further data collection by Mini-SAR and analysis will help scientists to determine if buried ice deposits exist in the permanently shadowed craters near the moon’s poles.
(The image to the right a Mini-RF synthetic aperture radar (SAR) strip overlain on an Earth-based, Arecibo Observatory radar telescope image. The south-polar SAR strip shows a part of the moon never seen before: a portion of Haworth crater that is permanently shadowed from Earth and the sun. The only way to explore these regions is by using an orbital radar such as Mini-RF. Over the coming year of Chandrayaan-1 operations, Mini-RF (also known as Mini-SAR) will map both polar regions to look for water ice. The spacecraft acquired these data from a 100-kilometer (62-mile) polar orbit; they reveal features as small as approximately 150 meters (490 feet) across. Bright areas represent surface roughness or slopes pointing toward the spacecraft. The data cover an area approximately 50 kilometers (31 miles) by 18 kilometers (11 miles). Credit: ISRO/NASA/JHUAPL/LPI/Cornell University/Smithsonian)
