Thursday, February 28, 2008

Goldstone LSP Data News Coverage

More on Lunar South Pole Radar Data

From Blog
Monster in Space

Chatter From Space.com

Earthlings have mapped the moon's surface for the past 4,000 years, but NASA's latest view is the best yet.

Scientists have created a new map of the south lunar pole with Earth-based telescopes that is 50 times more detailed than the last version, created with data from the Clementine spacecraft in 1994.

"This data is the highest resolution and the highest accuracy that's ever made of lunar south polar region," said Scott Hensley, a scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif.. Hensley and others announced the new map from the third Space Exploration Conference in Denver.

In detail of 215 square feet (20 square meters) per pixel, the map shows craters four times deeper than the Grand Canyon and hundreds of miles wide.

"It has some of the most incredible topography in the entire solar system," said Eric de Jong, also at JPL, of the region.

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