Nov 14 2007
Prev/Next Posts: « NASA builds a UFO??? || TAM 5.5 schedule up »
The Moon’s pole, in context
Note: Discovery HD will be showing the Kaguya Earthrise video in high-def format tonight (Wednesday) at 8:00 p.m. Eastern time!
When I posted the Earthrise picture last night, I was so gung-ho on the images themselves (and how dark the Moon looks) that it didn’t occur to me to think about the lunar landscape itself. Trust my old buddy and planetary/asteroid/moon expert Dan Durda to actually examine the surface and determine what you’re seeing (click to embiggen):
The big crater is Shackleton, and is 19 km across (roughly the size of Washington, DC). The other crater labeled is a little over a kilometer across, the same size as Meteor Crater in Arizona. A few years ago I stood on the rim of Meteor Crater in Arizona and marveled at the size of it… yet look at how dinky it is in comparison to Shackleton! And keep this in mind: Shackleton is a relatively small crater on the Moon. Tycho, for example, is 85 km across. Clavius is well over 200 km across.
Shackleton is special, though. It sits right on the Moon’s south pole. Parts of its rim stick up so high off the surface that they are almost always in sunlight, all the time. The Sun would never set for, say, a series of solar panels situated there. Weirdly, for parts of the crater floor, the Sun would never rise, and there is some evidence (still shaky, and not confirmed) that there may be deposits of water ice there. That’s why NASA is interesting in exploring this region of the Moon. It would make a great place to set up a power station for any future base, and might also be a supply of water. A twofer!
Pictures like this really bring home — so to speak — how alien and different the Moon is from the Earth.
So, orient me. Is the white cap on the top left of the Earth the South Pole? Is that Australia below it?
“The Sun would never set for, say, a series of solar panels situated there.”
That’s a *horrible* idea, it would clutter up the landscape, ruin the view. Jeez, we haven’t even arrived there again, and we’re already messing it up.
“We must leave the Moon as protected pristine wilderness!”
Grr. Argh. Bloody Romantics. Centipede SMASH.
Anyway, then there’s that even bigger crater on the left side of the picture, whatever that one is.
Watching the earth “rise” and “set” had my earth based brain thinking East and West even though the earth is upside down, and it didn’t make a lot of sense to me. Now that I read that that’s the south pole of the moon, it all makes sense. Again, thanks Phil for a great post.
Also… Great Ceasar’s Ghost!!! That Crater is MASSIVE! Thanks for putting that in perspective as well.
“So, orient me. Is the white cap on the top left of the Earth the South Pole? Is that Australia below it?”
That’s how it looks to me.
I wonder if moon water would taste the same as earth water - maybe a little stale?
Note: That showing on HDTV tonight is only in Canada (Discovery programming in Canada =/= Discovery programming in U.S.)
On a side note, that’s an appropriate name for a crater on the south pole - Shackleton was the guy who first explored the south pole on earth.
Um, I’d love to watch the footage on Discovery HD, but what should I make of the fact that my cable guide says nothing about it, the link you provide goes to discovery.ca (the Canadian version, presumably), and the American version of the Discovery Channel site shows nothing about it on any of its channels.
The simplest explanation would seem to be that it’s only showing in Canadia, but I suppose that the promotional materials could have been intelligently designed to only show up in the Great White North, and their omission here is just a test of our faith.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Dan Durda Rocks(!) !!!
> I wonder if moon water would taste the same as earth water - maybe a little stale?
With a slightly cheesy aftertaste, like sharp cheddar.
Factician appears to be correct. I’m not showing the Earth rise video on my Discovery Channel listings. And the link you gave has a “.ca” suffix, so apparently their programming is different from ours.
Just another reason we should stop picking on Iran and invade Canada instead, if you ask me.
So will there be frozen whales in the frozen water? So that the - don’t make me say it oh please don’t make me say it - whalers on the moon have something to do (ah, darnit)?
The best estimates that I’ve heard about Shackleton are 70% daylight around the edge. Sounds good, but even 30% darkness out of ~28 days is about 9 days with no power if you rely just on solar. (Assuming that the shadows are continuous).
Another site getting some interest is Malapert Crater/Mountain:
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solarsystem/moon_mountain_020326.html
re: the solar panels.
Quoting Phil:
Parts of its rim stick up so high off the surface that they are almost always in sunlight, all the time. The Sun would never set for, say, a series of solar panels situated there. Weirdly, for parts of the crater floor, the Sun would never rise
That would seem perfect for a heat pump, and I imagine the energy efficiency would be very high, since the moon has no atmosphere. And the distance between cold/hot (on either side of the shadowline) would be small, simplifying the engineering.
Sorry, DennyMo, more for you to worry about.
Um, heat engine not heat pump.
Yeah, so I sat down in front of my TV at 8PM sharp thinking I’ll get to watch this, and their showing Build it Bigger. Bummer. Watched the show anyway, though. My son liked it :p
[…] : Better Bad Astronomy […]
But there ain’t no whales, so we tell tall tales and sing our whaling tune!
The sign on my wall says,
FIRST STOP - THE MOON!
ITS NOT JUST AN AIRLESS DESERT ANYMORE -
ITS AN AIRLESS DESERT WITH THEME PARKS AND CONCESSION STANDS!
(I hope my winky emoticon made it clear that I was being facetious earlier.)
Skepterist, is that from Futurama? It pretty well describes one of their episodes.
Justin, that’s why they picked it.
>”Centipede SMASH.”
Hmm. Not *quite* the same impact as “Hulk SMASH!”
Heh heh heh… impact…
Mmmmmmmm…. 19km diameter crater that could be converted into a radio telescope that would put Aricebo to shame (drool…..)
Yup, sounds like a good place to put a base…. if the Reptilian aliens and their UFOs aren’t already there first!!!
[…] a new space tourism company in town. Phil Plait gives that recent Earth-rise image taken by Kaguya some context. Now you know the craters the spacecraft is flying […]
>>â€Centipede SMASH.â€
>Hmm. Not *quite* the same impact as “Hulk SMASH!â€
>Heh heh heh… impact…
Would you prefer “Centipede INJECT FULL OF POISON.” ? ‘Cuz braindead Romantics who want to keep the absolutely stone dead nature of the Moon pristinely stone dead could probably do with a bit o’ scolomorph neurotoxin.
[…] back. Bad Astronomy puts one of the images (including some topography around the lunar south pole in context, while Emily at the Planetary Society goes into more depth on the Kaguya Earthrise and Earthset […]