A team of researchers at Curtin University of Technology in Perth, Australia, has discovered 280 new craters on the Moon.
Spatial distribution of the 66 distinct new lunar craters identified using computer modeling of gravity and topography data: near side – left, far side – right (W. E. Featherstone et al / Curtin University of Technology)
The scientists used satellite-collected gravity and elevation data to develop an ultra-high resolution gravity map of the Moon.
They identified 280 lunar craters never mapped before, 66 of those categorized as distinctly visible from both a gravity and topographic perspective.
“Identifying such a large number of lunar craters was a result of using computer modeling of the lunar gravity and topography data, where regional features were removed to reveal more detailed basins that would otherwise be obscured using other techniques,” explained Prof Will Featherstone, lead author of a paper reporting the results in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets.
Spatial distribution of the 66 new craters on the Moon overlain on the lunar topography: near side – left, far side – right (W. E. Featherstone et al / Curtin University of Technology)
“Our curiosity-driven work initially focused on the identification of two basins on the lunar far side, but was extended during the peer-review process of scientific papers so as to cover the whole Moon.
“The dark side of the Moon is particularly challenging because Moon-orbiting satellites cannot be tracked from Earth when they are over the far side.”
“The team was optimistic about further discoveries after applying their techniques to the new gravity data collected by NASA’s GRAIL mission, which ceased when the two satellites – named Ebb and Flow – were deliberately crashed on the Moon on 17 December 2012,” Prof Featherstone said.
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Bibliographic information: W. E. Featherstone et al. 2013. Band-limited Bouguer gravity identifies new basins on the Moon. Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, published online; doi: 10.1002/jgre.20101
