New York: Astronomers have created a new lunar topography map with the highest resolution of the moon's rugged south polar region, which they claim provides new data on some of the Earth's natural satellite's dark craters.
A team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, in California created the map after collecting the data using the Deep Space Network's Goldstone Solar System Radar located in the Mojave Desert.
According to them, the map will help Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) mission planners as they target for an encounter with a permanently dark crater near the lunar South Pole.
"Since the beginning of time, these lunar craters have been invisible to humanity. Now we can see detailed topography inside these craters down to 40 meters (132 feet) per pixel, with height accuracy of better than 5 meters (16 feet)," said Barbara Wilson, who led the team.
In fact, the astronomers targeted the moon's south polar region using Goldstone's 230-foot radar dish.
The antenna, three-quarters the size of a football field, sent a 500-kilowatt-strong, 90-minute-long radar stream 373,046 kilometres to the moon, the US space agency said.