Friday, February 25, 2011

Fragmented Impact Melt


Western floor of the fresh crater Giordano Bruno, LROC Narrow Angle Camera M110919730L, 0.61 m/pixel, field of view is about 737 meters, illumination is from the lower right, at an incidence angle of 42° View the full-sized image HERE [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University].

Hiroyuki Sato
LROC News System

Today's Featured Image looks like a parched Arizona mudflat after a monsoon downpour. Not quite! You are looking at the broken surface of an impact melt pond inside Giordano Bruno crater. A surface crust fragmented into angular blocks up to about 40 meters in width as still molten rock was drained from beneath a hardening crust. The small clusters of relatively bright rock fragments are likely boulders that rolled down from the nearby steep walls.


Context map around Giordano Bruno crater. LROC Wide Angle Camera 100 meters/pixel mosaic. Blue rectangle, centered near 36.09°N, 102.83°E. corresponds to the footprint the LROC frame from which the LROC Featured Narrow Ange Camera Image was sampled. View the full-sized WAC image map sample HERE [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University].

Explore lunar melt ponds by viewing the full NAC frame!

Related Featured Images:
Giordano Bruno impact melt flows and ejecta flows

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