Hubble Space Telescope Looks at the Moon to Prospect for Resources (Aristarchus Crater - gray)

  • Released Tuesday, October 18th, 2005
  • Updated Wednesday, May 3rd, 2023 at 1:56PM
  • ID: 3275

My edit: The Hubble Space Telescope was used to gather high resolution multi spectral data of the moon's Aristarchus Crater in order to investigate the possibility of potential oxygen producing minerals on the surface. Identifying such minerals could aid in planning future sustained human missions on the moon. Initial analysis of the data indicate the likely presence of titanium and iron oxides. Both these minerals could be used as oxygen sources essential for human exploration.

This visualization starts with a view of the moon as seen from Earth using a USGS Apollo derived artist rendered texture (airbrushed). The camera then zooms into the Aristarchus Crater region. Simulated topography derived from Clementine data is used for relief and high resolution HST data is used for the area of interest. After investigating Aristarchus Crater, the camera then moves over to Schroter's Valley for a brief investigation.

This visualization is match rendered with id 3275 so that the color version can be dissolved in or out as needed.

Exposure Time: 2.5 minutes

Filters: F250W (250nm), F344N (344nm), F502N (502nm), F658N (658nm)

Push in and fly-around of HST imagery of Aristarchus Crater

HST imagery of Aristarchus Crater draped over simulated topography

HST imagery of Aristarchus Crater draped over simulated topography

Credits

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio Additional credit to Zoltan G. Levay (STScI)

Missions

This visualization is related to the following missions:

Series

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Datasets used in this visualization

HST (Collected with the ACS sensor)
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Clementine (Collected with the HIRES sensor)
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HST (Collected with the WFPC2 sensor)

Wide-Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) was installed in Dec 1993 and used to obtain high resolution images of astronomical objects. This camera was removed in the last servicing mission so it is no longer in service.

Dataset can be found at: http://www.stsci.edu/hst/wfpc2/wfpc2_diag.html

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Clementine and HST Lunar Composite Texture (Collected with the HIRES and the Telescope sensor)
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