NASA shows a new map of the far side of the Moon
June 22, 2011 Category: Astronautics Leave a commentNASA showed on Monday the most complete picture of the far side of the moon. The picture was made thanks to the data transmitted by the probe Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO).
The view of the moon has been changed forever. The seven LRO probe’s instruments collected 192 terabytes of data, images and maps, which have set the most accurate picture to date of Earth’s natural satellite.
The far side of the Moon
“This is a great achievement”, Douglas Cooke said, Associate Administrator for the Office of Exploration Systems Mission Directorate, at NASA.
The LRO spacecraft was launched into space in June 2009. Since it began to send us its first images, LRO has allowed us to know better the far side of the moon and design a complete map of its craters. “And that was only the beginning”, Cooke said.
Maps show elevation data for the moon from a 2005 survey (left) compared with new data from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (right). Credit: Goddard Space Flight Center Science Visualization Studio/NASA
What is Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter?
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) is a NASA robotic spacecraft currently orbiting the Moon on a low 50 km polar mapping orbit.
The LRO mission is a precursor to future manned missions to the Moon by NASA. To this end a detailed mapping program will identify safe landing sites, locate potential resources on the Moon, characterize the radiation environment, and demonstrate new technology.
Exploring the far side of the Moon
The Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA) has conducted more than 4,000 million measurements, a hundred times more than all the data sent so far by all the artifacts used by NASA to investigate the Moon. The new data open a world of possibilites for the future of exploration and science. NASA says the amount of information is equal to about 41,000 DVD.
Another of his instruments is the Chamber of Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LROC) which revealed detailed images of almost 5.7 million square kilometers of the Moon surface during the exploration phase.
“With this resolution, LRO could easily spot a picnic table on the moon,” said LRO’s Project Scientist Richard Vondrak of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.