Planets and Moons ID: 3731

LOLA: Lunar Topography in Natural Color

Visualizations by Ernie Wright Released on June 21, 2010

This animation is a brief tour of several prominent features of the Moon's terrain: Tycho crater, the south pole, and the South Pole-Aitken basin. It is match-moved to a companion piece showing the terrain elevations in false color.

This is an update of animation 3594, which was produced before the launch of Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. Except for the Tycho crater inset, the elevation map in this updated version is based entirely on early results of the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter onboard LRO.

The surface appearance is derived from photographs taken by the Clementine spacecraft. Although it shows the visible surface in natural color, this animation does not depict realistic sunlight and shadows. This is especially significant near the poles, where certain parts of the terrain can be in permanent shadow and would never be fully visible in the manner depicted here.

Tycho crater and its bright ejecta rays are among the youngest and most recognizable features on the Moon. The crater is 85 kilometers (50 miles) wide and 4700 meters (15,400 feet) deep. The central peak is 2400 meters (7900 feet) above the crater floor.

Bowl-shaped Shackleton crater (center) marks the south pole of the Moon. It is flanked on the left by (top to bottom) Faustini, Shoemaker, and Haworth craters. Cabeus (bottom, center-left) was the site of the LCROSS impact.

The South Pole-Aitken basin, roughly 2100 kilometers (1300 miles) wide and 10 kilometers (6 miles) deep, is one of the largest impact features in the solar system. It lies on the far side of the Moon, the hemisphere never visible from Earth, and was found only after spacecraft began visiting the Moon in the 1960s.

For More Information

http://www.nasa.gov/lro

Visualization Credits

Ernie Wright (UMBC): Lead Animator
Marte Newcombe (GST): Animator
Andrew Freeberg (NASA/GSFC): Producer
James Garvin (NASA/GSFC): Scientist

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio