A team of researchers using data from the Lyman-Alpha Mapping Project (LAMP) instrument on the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has detected two geologically fresh craters within the permanently shaded regions of the Moon.
Dr. Mandt and co-authors discovered two geologically young craters – one (right) 16 million, the other (left) between 75 and 420 million, years old – in the Moon’s darkest regions. Image credit: NASA GSFC / SwRI / ASU.
The team, headed by Dr. Kathleen Mandt from the Southwest Research Institute, mapped the floors of very large, deep craters near the lunar south pole.
The scientists determined that the areas around the two craters were brighter and rougher than the surrounding landscape.
They estimated the age of one crater, which lies within the larger Faustini Crater, at about 16 million years.
The other crater lies within Slater Crater, named for the late Dr. David C. Slater, a former space scientist at the Southwest Research Institute who designed and built the LAMP instrument.
The crater’s rough extended ejecta blanket had faded, showing that this crater must be at least 75 million years old.
But time would have completely covered the ejecta blanket in fluffy dust within 420 million years, providing an upper limit on its age.
“These ‘young’ impact craters are a really exciting discovery,” Dr. Mandt said.
“Finding geologically young craters and honing in on their age helps us understand the collision history in the Solar System.”
“We study planetary geology to understand the history of Solar System formation,” added co-author Dr. Thomas Greathouse, also from the Southwest Research Institute.
“It is exciting and extremely gratifying to happen upon a unique and unexpected new method for the detection and age determination of young craters in the course of nominal operations.”
“Discovering these two craters and a new way to detect young craters in the most mysterious regions of the Moon is particularly exciting,” Dr. Mandt added.
The findings were published in the July 15 issue of the journal Icarus.
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Kathleen E. Mandt et al. 2016. LRO-LAMP detection of geologically young craters within lunar permanently shaded regions. Icarus, vol. 273, pp. 114-120; doi: 10.1016/j.icarus.2015.07.031
