Mohammed Shaban
Have you ever wondered what kind of rocks make up these bright and dark smears on the moon? Recently, scientists have drawn a new color map of the moon’s surface that may help explain the history of our nearest neighbor in space, which is 4.5 billion years old.
This map is the first to depict the entire surface of the moon, which was reconfigured by scientists of the Geological Survey in cooperation with the American Space Agency (NASA) and the Institute of Lunar Planets.
Building on past efforts,
scientists have used information from six maps of the moon that have been available since the Apollo missions, along with updated information from recent satellite missions sent to the moon.
To produce this new and complete digital map of the moon, scientists redesigned historical "Apollo" maps to accommodate modern data sets, and then they were able to preserve earlier observations and interpretations that Apollo's journeys provided us with.
The scientists also used the Japanese space exploration observations to obtain information about the protrusions at the lunar equator, and they derived the terrain of the north and south poles from the orbital laser altimeter of the American Space Agency.
In addition, researchers of the Geological Survey have developed a unified description of the stratified geology (rock layers) of the moon, which helped to develop a uniform and consistent visualization of the names, descriptions, and ages of rocks, which were sometimes not consistent with each other in the past.
The final map consists of 43 geological units for the entire surface of the moon, divided into smaller groups based on various characteristics, such as structures of volcanic craters, basins, land, plains, and volcanic units.
The map also shows bright spots on the moon that represent different ages for these geological features.
| Moon's Apollo historical maps helped scientists map the modern map (Wikipedia) |
A new map .. With a new
dimension, this digital map of the moon will greatly assist in the success of the current and future missions of the moon. On the importance of this map, the director of the US Geospatial Survey and former astronaut Jim Reilly - while transmitting the "Phys.Org" site - comments, "People have always been fascinated by the moon, and when can we visit it again?"
"It is surprising that the Geological Survey is introducing this new resource that could help the US space agency plan its future missions to the moon," he added.
For example, exploring the south pole of the moon is very interesting, because it is much larger than the north pole, as well as the possibility of water in its permanently shaded areas. In addition, the Antarctic contains the fossil record of the early solar system.
So the US space agency, in its "Artemis" program - the human spaceflight program - plans to return big to the moon again, by sending humans to the moon's south pole by 2024.
Therefore, a complete map like this may give a new and important dimension to the success of the future missions of the moon, as it would help the astronauts to determine the locations of landing on the moon's surface, and how they explored its surface during those missions.
The decades-long project The
leader of this study, from the Geological Survey, Curie Fortezo, says, "This map is the culmination of a decades-long project, because it provides essential information for scientific scholars by linking them to what was discovered from specific locations on the moon's surface with the rest of its surface."
Having a more accurate map of the moon’s terrain gives astronomers a deeper insight that helps them understand the origins of the moon, taking into account the absence of winds, rivers, or tectonic plates that erase or alter geological features.
Hence this map helps geologists to learn more about the early history of our solar system. The chemical composition of pits and rocks on the surface of the moon may also help to know the early chemical composition of the Earth, which may enable us to understand how life is on Earth.