Join the Million Crater Challenge

By Nancy Atkinson - April 23, 2012 at 8:09 PM UTC | Planetary Science
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Like a challenge? Right now you can join in a contest to mark a million craters, as part of the Moon Mappers project. "Our challenge to you is to try and observe 1 million craters on the Moon before the full Moon again rises in the evening sky on May 5," said Dr. Pamela Gay, who leads the Cosmoquest program of citizen science project. "Help us 'illuminate' the Moon with new scientific discoveries one crater at a time."

As an enticement to join in, there are prizes!

There will be prizes for the ten CosmoQuest community members who make the observations closest to each interval of 100,000, and for 10 additional randomly selected community members who participate in this challenge. Prizes include

Surly Amy pendants

,

Astrosphere posters

, and Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter lithographs.

Are there a million craters on the Moon? Dr. Gay said that with LRO, craters the size on 1 meter can be seen. But for Moon Mappers, participants are asked to identify craters nine meters in diameter. "There are literally millions of craters at that size," she said.

Moon Mappers is not only fun, but your contributions help build a new scientific understanding of the Moon. The Moon Mappers team has already published their first scientific paper based on the work done by citizen scientists, so help them keep going to discover as much as we can about the Moon.

Check out Moon Mappers!

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