Oblique view of lunar crater
Cool image time! The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) science team this week released an image showing Wallach Crater as seen from the side. The image on the right is a section of that image and has been reduced to show here. The full image of 3.5-mile-wide crater and its surrounding terrain can be explored at the link. From the link:
Wallach crater (4.89°N, 32.27°E) formed within a thin layer of black basaltic lava flows that overlie much brighter anorthositic material. Think of a white cake with chocolate icing. When the asteroid (or comet) impacted this “iced cake”, ejecta from deeper portions (white cake, or rather brighter anorthosite) was thrown out onto the icing (darker basalt) resulting in intermediate tones where the two materials mixed.
The dark streaks seen inside the crater are blocks of the icing (basalt) breaking off and creeping down slope. The fact that the deepest material lands on top of the shallowest material (known as inverted stratigraphy) was first described by Gene Shoemaker from his pioneering observations at Meteor Crater, Arizona. This effect simplifies sampling the local geology in three dimensions. As an astronaut traverses towards the rim of a crater, the rocks underfoot come from deeper and deeper within the crater. The rocks at the rim are from the deepest portions of the crater!
It is especially interesting to use the viewer at the link to see the surrounding terrain, which includes two other craters that are far less distinct.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Cool image time! The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) science team this week released an image showing Wallach Crater as seen from the side. The image on the right is a section of that image and has been reduced to show here. The full image of 3.5-mile-wide crater and its surrounding terrain can be explored at the link. From the link:
Wallach crater (4.89°N, 32.27°E) formed within a thin layer of black basaltic lava flows that overlie much brighter anorthositic material. Think of a white cake with chocolate icing. When the asteroid (or comet) impacted this “iced cake”, ejecta from deeper portions (white cake, or rather brighter anorthosite) was thrown out onto the icing (darker basalt) resulting in intermediate tones where the two materials mixed.
The dark streaks seen inside the crater are blocks of the icing (basalt) breaking off and creeping down slope. The fact that the deepest material lands on top of the shallowest material (known as inverted stratigraphy) was first described by Gene Shoemaker from his pioneering observations at Meteor Crater, Arizona. This effect simplifies sampling the local geology in three dimensions. As an astronaut traverses towards the rim of a crater, the rocks underfoot come from deeper and deeper within the crater. The rocks at the rim are from the deepest portions of the crater!
It is especially interesting to use the viewer at the link to see the surrounding terrain, which includes two other craters that are far less distinct.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Cool? Positively Antarctic, close to Absolute Zero! This is why Space excites us!!
Yes, Col Beausabre. We ARE interested in space. Otherwise, we would have taken the blue pill.
Since I bought & read Mr. Zimmerman’s book, I’ve been searching Mars pics for that one simple glimpses…. ??