William Atkins
Sunday, 15 February 2009 20:27
Science -
Space
Page 2 of 4
The Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS) and National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA), both within the Japanese space agency Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (
JAXA), launched the SELENE (Kaguya) lunar probe on September 14, 2007 from the Tanegashima Space Center. [The Planetary Society: “
Kaguya Rockets Toward the Moon”]
SELENE stands for Selenological and Engineering Explorer, but Selene is also a lunar deity in Greek mythology. The spacecraft’s other name, Kaguya, is the name of a princess from the ancient Japanese story “
The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter."
Two sub-satellites released from
SELENE are called Rstar and Vstar, also nicknamed Okina and Ouna, respectively (both from ancient Japanese stories).
U.S. earth scientist
C.K. Shum (Department of Geological Sciences at Ohio State University), one of the authors of the Science story, stated,
"The surface can tell us a lot about what's happening inside the Moon, but until now mapping has been very limited. For instance, with this new high-resolution map, we can confirm that there is very little water on the Moon today, even deep in the interior. And we can use that information to think about water on other planets, including Mars." [ScienceDaily.com: “
New High-resolution Map Suggests Little Water Inside Moon”]
Shum adds,
"This design [of the SELENE spacecraft with its two sub-satellites] significantly improved our ability to model gravity fields on the moon, and let us compute the main satellite's orbit more accurately than was possible before, especially over the far side the Moon. That led to more accurate measurement of the lunar topography using LALT."
Japanese astronomer
Hiroshi Araki (National Astronomical Observatory, Japan) heads this LALT science team.
Page three discusses the highest and lowest points so far found on the Moon.
