South Pole Aitken Basin
The South Pole Aitken Basin is the largest impact crater on Earth's moon and the largest known one in the solar system off Hellas Planitia on Mars .
description
The basin extends from the south pole of the moon to Aitken crater on the back of the moon . It measures 2240 km, is up to 13 km deep (other data refer to 2500 km in diameter and 12 km in depth), and has no pronounced crater rim .
For the South Pole Aitken Basin, studies by the Clementine Mission and the Lunar Prospector suggest that a very large impact body pierced the lunar crust and possibly exposed mantle rocks. After the impact that created the basin, many other craters covered it.
In craters near the poles, there can even be water ice . The ice presumably comes from external sources - it was "brought" by the other celestial bodies when it hit. Deeper parts of craters at the South Pole are never illuminated by the sun, so the water ice could have held up to this day.
The Chang'e-4 lunar probe from the National Space Agency of China, which landed on January 3, 2019, or its rover Jadehase 2 is to examine the site for the first time. First results were published on May 15, 2019 in the British journal Nature , further results on February 26, 2020 in the American journal Science Advances .
See also
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Tilmann Althaus: Chinese space probe Chang'e-4 flies to the moon. In: Spektrum.de, accessed online on December 17, 2018 | 2:39 p.m. - available online
- ↑ Li Chunlai et al .: Chang'E-4 initial spectroscopic identification of lunar far-side mantle-derived materials. In: nature.com. May 15, 2019, accessed on March 23, 2020 .
- ↑ Li Chunlai, Su Yan et al .: The Moon's farside shallow subsurface structure unveiled by Chang'E-4 Lunar Penetrating Radar. In: advances.sciencemag.org. February 26, 2020, accessed on March 23, 2020 .