Scientists have created a 3-D
picture of a luminous and mountainous site on the moon that holds promise as a
possible future location for a lunar colony.
The spot, near the moon's south
pole, is called the "peak of eternal light" because it is
almost continuously exposed to sunlight.
Researchers created the new 3-D image using data taken by
the Advanced Moon Micro-Imager Experiment (AMIE) camera carried by the European
Space Agency's SMART-1
(Small Missions for Advanced Research in Technology) robotic moon mission.
"AMIE is not a stereo camera, so producing a 3-D model
of the surface has been a challenge," said ESA researcher Detlef Koschny. "We've used a technique
where we use the brightness of reflected light to determine the slope and, by
comparing several images, put together a model that produces a shadow pattern
that matches those observed by SMART-1."
Koschny plans to present the images Sept. 26 at the European
Planetary Science Congress in Münster, Germany.
During its orbits around the moon, which lasted from November 2004 until September 2006, AMIE
took a total of 113 images of the peak, located close to the rim of the
Shackleton Crater on the lunar south pole. In all but four of the images, the
peak was illuminated by sunlight.
The peak of eternal light could be
a promising spot for a future manned moon landing or even a lunar
colony, because the near-continuous sunlight that shines down could
generate a constant electricity supply. In addition, the shadowed craters
nearby are in perpetual darkness and may hold water ice deposited over
millennia by impacting comets and hydrogen and oxygen particles contained in
the solar wind.
To create the 3-D map of the area,
the team, led by Björn Grieger of ESA's European Space Astronomy Centre in
Madrid, analyzed five images taken from different angles. By comparing the
images, and mapping all of their pixels onto a grid, the researchers calculated
the angles of the peak's slopes and produced a topographical model.
After its years in orbit, the
SMART-1 satellite eventually crashed
into the moon as planned in September 2006.
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