The Moon's Permanently Shadowed Regions
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- Visualizations by:
- Ernie Wright
- View full credits
As you watch the Moon over the course of a month, you'll notice that different features are illuminated by the Sun at different times. However, there are some parts of the Moon that never see sunlight. These areas are called permanently shadowed regions, and they appear dark because unlike on the Earth, the axis of the Moon is nearly perpendicular to the direction of the sun's light. The result is that the bottoms of certain craters are never pointed toward the Sun, with some remaining dark for over two billion years. However, thanks to new data from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, we can now see into these dark craters in incredible detail.
Deep in the craters of the Moon's south pole lurk permanently shadowed regions: areas that have not seen sunlight in over two billion years. Now, NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is shedding a new light on some of our satellite's darkest mysteries.
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Credits
Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
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Animators
- Ernie Wright (USRA) [Lead]
- Chris Meaney (KBR Wyle Services, LLC)
- Chris Smith (KBR Wyle Services, LLC)
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Writer
- Chris Smith (KBR Wyle Services, LLC)
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Video editor
- Dan Gallagher (KBR Wyle Services, LLC)
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Producers
- Chris Smith (KBR Wyle Services, LLC)
- Dan Gallagher (KBR Wyle Services, LLC)
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Narrator
- Dan Gallagher (KBR Wyle Services, LLC)
Missions
This visualization is related to the following missions:Series
This visualization can be found in the following series:Tapes
This visualization originally appeared on the following tapes:-
LRO's New Looks at the Moon's Permanently-Shadowed Regions
(ID: 2013007)
Wednesday, March 6, 2013 at 5:00AM
Produced by - Brendan Antiochos
Related Pages
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ID: 11230 Produced Video
Staring Into Darkness
Read moreThe walls within some craters at the moon's poles have gone without sunlight for as long as two billion years. Known as permanently shadowed regions, these craters lie almost perpendicular to the sun, never receiving its warmth or light. By bouncing laser beams off the moon's surface, NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) mapped the shape and elevation of these incredibly dark areas. Detailed 3-D models constructed from the data, combined with data collected by other instruments aboard the spacecraft, reveal which craters are fully hidden from the sun's rays, and which crater floors are cold enough for chemicals such as water to build up in the lunar soil. Watch the video to learn more. ||
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ID: 4043 Visualization
LRO Peers into Permanent Shadows
Read moreThe Moon's permanently shadowed regions, or PSRs, are places on the Moon that haven't seen the Sun in millions, or even billions, of years. The Earth's tilted axis allows sunlight to fall everywhere on its surface, even at the poles, for at least part of the year. But the Moon's tilt relative to the Sun is only 1.6°, not enough to get sunlight into some deep craters near the lunar north and south poles. PSRs are therefore some of the coldest, darkest places in the solar system.Because of that, PSRs are expected to be excellent traps for volatiles, chemicals that would normally vaporize and escape into space, and this includes water. Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) includes several instruments designed to peer into the PSR darkness and measure temperature, reflectivity, and neutron absorption, all of which are clues to what chemicals might be hiding there. This animation shows where the PSRs are and in what ways LRO can see inside them. ||
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