Thanks to World of Warships for sponsoring today’s video!
Do you believe the Moon to be barren, grey, and uninteresting?
Well, to me, that couldn’t be any further from the truth.
The moon is packed full of secrets about its past, and has clues dotted all over its surface
which give us information about how it formed and evolved over time.
From global events that created some of the largest craters in the solar system, to tiny
hills exposing layering in the moons crust, each helps us get a better picture of our
closest celestial neighbour, and as a result, expands our understanding about the formation
of the solar system as a whole.
It’s no wonder then that NASA has a spacecraft called the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which
is in orbit around the Moon right now, mapping out its entire surface.
I’m Alex McColgan, and you’re watching Astrum and in this episode of the LRO series,
we will investigate on some of the most unusual terrain found on the Moon’s surface, and
hopefully I will be able to make the grey, barren and uninteresting world into something
fascinating and wonderful for you.
Let’s start with a place rich in incredible contrast.
This oblique angle shot is of Jackson Crater, sadly not visible to us on Earth as it is
on the far side of the Moon.
A bit like Tycho crater on the near side of the Moon, when it formed, it created a ray
system stretching over 1000km.
Ray systems form when particularly fine material is ejected far beyond the crater rim, although
their formation is still being studied.
Jackson crater itself is about 70km in diameter, and due to its size, it is a complex crater,
as can be seen by its terraced walls and uplift of the central region.
This crater is actually tilted, the east of the crater is 6000m in elevation, and the
west is only 3000m high.
The base of the crater has an elevation of 1000m, and the peak comprises of material
that was pushed up from another 1000m down!
Some of the dark patches you see along the walls are shadows due to the Sun’s angle
in the sky, but there also are sections of darker materials compared to the predominantly
lighter coloured ground.
Although, it’s not as light as this image would have you think.
Your viewing angle and the angle of the Sun play a big role in how contrasts appear on
the lunar surface.
Focus here on the central peak in this image.
We’ll now switch to a top down perspective of this same peak, taken at a different time
of lunar day.
Suddenly, the crater basin and the tip of the mountain peak appear much darker than
before.
But a side by side comparison does show how the differences in contrast can be seen in
both pictures.
And that’s not the only optical illusion the Moon can trick you with.
Have a close look at this image.
What does it appear like to you?
Are these regions of inverted bubbles, or are these sections actually rising higher
than the wiggly textured material surrounding them?
Well, for the longest time, I could only see it’s inverted.
But maybe if you look around the image, suddenly it will switch perspectives for you.
What type of image did you see first?
Are you like me and need proof it’s not actually inverted?
Well, have a look at the same region but from a different angle.
Seeing it like this makes me wonder how I could have seen anything else!
This is a small region on the Moon called Ina.
It’s only 2-3km wide, and 64m deep, and no-one really knows how something like this
formed.
It’s one of several similar regions on the Moon, although this one is the most prominent.
To a certain degree, a similar optical illusion can happen with small craters.
Do you see domes here, or craters?
Sometimes rotating the picture can help get the right perspective.
That’s why the LRO is so useful in my opinion, not only do we get top down views, but oblique
perspectives too!
Moving on to another unusual lunar region, let’s have a look at Komarov Crater.
This crater would be pretty normal by lunar standards if it were not for the fact that
it has huge fracture lines running across the base.
Komarov crater itself is even bigger than Jackson Crater, at 95km in diameter, meaning
these are up to 500m deep and 2.5km wide!
It is believed that 2.6 billion years ago, magma built up under the crater, causing large
amounts of pressure to fracture the crust, although it appears that the magma never made
it to the surface, meaning the fractures were never filled in and it has remained like that
ever since.
But although it didn’t happen in this instance, there are examples on the Moon of magma breaking
through and pooling on the surface.
One such example can be found west of Plato crater, a large 100km wide crater seen towards
the north of the Moon, visible with a telescope or binoculars on Earth.
This image has a few rather spectacular points of interest to see, the obvious one being
this channel which cuts through the ground.
This section here is a lava vent, back when the Moon was a lot more geologically active.
Running out of the vent, in a south westerly direction, is something known as a rima, or
a rille.
These are channels cut out by lava melting and eroding its way down the slope, kind of
like a river on Earth.
To the east in this image, we see the crater rim of Plato.
Plato itself was likely filled with lava at some point, as the base is darker and smoother
than the regions northwards.
However, in this image we can see that a huge section of crust has collapsed down from the
crater wall, creating a 24km wide slump block!
In other words, this section was once connected to the higher plain, however it has since
collapsed under its own weight, breaking away and falling somewhat into the crater.
Let’s have a look at one more crater.
This breath-taking view is from the Apollo 15 mission, overlooking Aristarchus Crater.
Aristarchus is seen towards the north west of the Moon, and although Aristarchus only
40km across, it’s bright enough to be seen with the naked eye.
From Apollo’s viewpoint, we can see a really wide angled perspective of the crater.
Surrounding it are more rilles and lava vents, and a small ray system can be seen extending
away from the centre.
From this angle, with the shadow extruding out from the rim, you get a sense of how deep
this crater is.
This complex crater has prominent crater walls, however the uplift found in the centre seems
pretty small.
From LRO’s perspective, we have a much higher resolution view of Aristarchus again, and
we can have a close examination of the walls and crater base.
The walls are similar in appearance to Jackson crater, however, looking at the peak towards
the crater’s centre reveals some major differences.
Not only is the peak much smaller, it also has a banded pattern, exposing layers in the
crust that would have otherwise been hidden 100s of meters down.
The base of the crater was also likely to have formed from molten lava, rock melted
by the impactor.
Fracture lines from rapid cooling are evident all over, and looking at where the walls meet
the crater base, you can easily imagine how this base was once a liquid.
Let’s have a look at one last image.
This area is known as Montes Carpatus, and what’s immediately apparent here are the
variations in contrast again.
Generally speaking, looking at darker regions on the Moon indicates older material but it
also indicates what the material is comprised of.
The darkest regions in this image are thought to have formed from explosive volcanic activity
over three billion years ago.
Lava would have also flown down through valleys like these ones.
Also sprinkling the surface are white dots, these are small impact craters, and appear
white as they are a lot more fresh than the surrounding regions, and space weathering
hasn’t had an opportunity to darken them yet.
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So, there we have it, a glimpse into some of the most unusual regions on the Moon’s
surface.
Have you learned something today about our closest neighbour?
And do you still have questions about it that I didn’t answer today?
I’d love to see your thoughts in the comments below!
Thanks for watching!
If you liked this video, be sure to check out my other LRO and MRO videos in this playlist
here.
A big thanks to my Patrons and members as always, if you would like to support the channel
too, see the links in the description.
All the best!
And see you next time.