Monumental Moon map makes more missions manageable

William Atkins
Sunday, 15 February 2009 20:27

Science - Space

Four other Science articles are included in the journal.

These are:

•    "Seeing the Missing Half" (Gregory A. Neumann and Erwan Mazarico, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland).

Part of their paper states:

“Results from the Japanese SELENE mission shed light on differences between the far and nearsides of the Moon.”

•    "Long-Lived Volcanism on the Lunar Farside Revealed by SELENE Terrain Camera" (Junichi Haruyama, Makiko Ohtake, Tsuneo Matsunaga, Tomokatsu Morota, Chikatoshi Honda, Yasuhiro Yokota, Masanao Abe, Yoshiko Ogawa, Hideaki Miyamoto, Akira Iwasaki, Carle M. Pieters, Noriaki Asada, Hirohide Demura, Naru Hirata, Junya Terazono, Sho Sasaki, Kazuto Saiki, Atsushi Yamaji, Masaya Torii, and Jean-Luc Josset).

Their abstract states in part:

“These young ages indicate that mare volcanism on the lunar farside lasted longer than was previously considered and may have occurred episodically."

•    "Farside Gravity Field of the Moon from Four-Way Doppler Measurements of SELENE (Kaguya)" (Noriyuki Namiki, Takahiro Iwata, Koji Matsumoto, Hideo Hanada, Hirotomo Noda, Sander Goossens, Mina Ogawa, Nobuyuki Kawano, Kazuyoshi Asari, Sei-itsu Tsuruta, Yoshiaki Ishihara, Qinghui Liu, Fuyuhiko Kikuchi, Toshiaki Ishikawa, Sho Sasaki, Chiaki Aoshima, Kosuke Kurosawa, Seiji Sugita, and Tadashi Takano).

An excerpt from their abstract states:

“Variable styles of compensation on the near- and farsides suggest that reheating and weakening of the lithosphere on the nearside was more extensive than previously considered.”

•    "Lunar Radar Sounder Observations of Subsurface Layers Under the Nearside Maria of the Moon" (Takayuki Ono, Atsushi Kumamoto, Hiromu Nakagawa, Yasushi Yamaguchi, Shoko Oshigami, Atsushi Yamaji, Takao Kobayashi, Yoshiya Kasahara, and Hiroshi Oya).

A conclusion of their research shows:

“These observations suggest that mascon loading did not produce the tectonics in Serenitatis after 3.55 billion years ago. Global cooling probably dominated the tectonics after 2.84 billion years ago.”