An Unusual Look at the Moon's South Pole

By Nancy Atkinson - December 16, 2010 06:38 AM UTC | Planetary Science

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No, this is not a wheel of moldy Swiss Cheese. It's an illumination map of the South Pole of the Moon. There are some areas on the poles of the Moon, particularly the interior of craters, that lie in permanent shadow while other areas remain sunlit for the majority of the year. This image was taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera, which has a primary objective of unambiguously identifying these regions. This composite image contains over 1,700 images taken of the same area by the LROC Wide Angle Camera (WAC) over a six month period, which works out to six lunar days.

Here's how the LROC team described how they created the image:

"Each image was map projected and converted to a binary image (if the ground was illuminated that pixel was set to one, and if shadowed zero) to differentiate between sunlit and shadowed regions. All the binary images were then stacked, and then for each pixel it was determined what percentage of the time during six months that spot was illuminated. Presto - an illumination map! The LROC team is making daily (which is about 28 Earth days) and yearly illumination maps for both poles. Such maps will provide the foundation for planning future robotic and human missions to the poles."

Anyone up for

building a telescope inside one of those craters?

Source:

LROC website

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com