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Moon’s largest crater is rounder than 1st thought
- The South Pole-Aitken basin, the largest impact crater on the moon, is more circular than scientists previously thought, based on a study by the University of Maryland.
- The 1,550-mile (2,500-km) crater is one of the largest impacts craters in the solar system and sits on the moon’s far side.
- Using high-resolution images from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, the researchers studied more than 200 mount formations surrounding the crater to determine its original shape.
- If an impact created a more circular crater, debris will have been more evenly distributed around it, which makes it easier for Artemis astronauts to study rocks from deep within the moon’s mantle or crust.
- Studying these rocks, which would have been blasted from the moon’s lower crust and upper mantle, could provide insights into the moon’s formation and the early history of the solar system.
- This discovery may also offer implications for NASA’s plans to send astronauts to the lunar South Pole.
- India’s Chandrayaan-3 mission, which landed near the lunar South Pole, has previously discovered minerals consistent with a more head-on impact than one at an angle.
- Scientists think that an unusual large mass of material found beneath the South Pole-Aitken basin consists of metal and material leftover from the impact.
- The research, published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters, challenges previous notions and offers a step towards understanding the moon’s early history.
- Implications also apply to missions beyond the moon and understanding how the moon and solar system came to be.
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