‘Freckle’ discovered on the face of the Moon and it may assist form future missions
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera team has identified a new 22m diameter crater and say it’s vital for moon landings as it helps identify safer landing zones
Scientists have announced they have found a “freckle” on the Moon.
Researchers at the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) team has identified a new 22m diameter crater formed by a space rock crashing into the lunar surface.
LROC says the collision, which occurred just north of Römer crater, ejected material tens of metres from the crater rim, creating “bright, sunburst-shaped rays.” The team has described the find as “a new freckle on the face of the moon.”
This find is important for human moon landings because knowing where recent impacts have occurred helps identify safer landing zones and understand the lunar surface’s evolving conditions.
LROC said: “The Moon has been bombarded throughout its history. Although the days of dramatic collisions that formed massive craters are largely over, the Moon is still struck by space rocks (asteroids and comets) that create small, fresh craters. The LROC team identified this new 22m diameter crater by detecting changes in images taken before and after the impact, constraining its formation to between December 2009 and December 2012.”
The boffins say that over time, the rays will darken to the shade of the surrounding regolith – the loose, fragmented material that blankets the solid rock – as the material is exposed to space weathering.
They said: “The LROC discovery of new craters is essential for understanding impact rates and crater degradation rates over time, as well as for planning safe, successful missions to the Moon.”
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera team is a group of scientists and engineers led by Mark Robinson at Arizona State University who operate LROC’s cameras to capture and analyse high-resolution images of the Moon, supporting lunar research and mission planning.
It follows claims by Harvard professor Avi Loeb that the interstella object 3I/Atlas is an alien spaceship. He suggested it could be an alien “mothership” on a reconnaissance mission as it blasts through the Solar System at 130,000mph.
SpaceX chief Elon Musk has also claimed it could be of alien origin and urged space agencies to continue to monitor its approach to make sure we know where it is going. But NASA bosses have said they believe it moves and behaves like a comet.
But Prof Loeb said: “We should not ‘judge a book by its cover,’ because we all know about the Trojan Horse which appeared unthreatening to the guardians of the City of Troy.”
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