William Atkins
Friday, 03 July 2009 18:57
Science -
Space
Page 1 of 2
NASA announced on July 2, 2009, that the first images of the Moon have been returned by its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). The LRO Camera took the pictures near Hell E crater.
The LRO Camera (LROC) is actually two cameras: a low-resolution Wide Angle Camera (WAC) and a high-resolution Narrow Angle Camera (NAC).
According to the NASA press release
NASA’s LRO spacecraft sends first lunar images to Earth,
“The cameras are working well and have returned images of a region a few kilometers east of Hell E crater in the lunar highlands south of Mare Nubium.”
Mare Nubrium, or “sea of clouds” is a lunar mare (or, large, dark-looking basaltic plains on the Moon's surface formed by eruptions of volcanos long ago in its past) on the near-side of the Moon. It is located southeast of
Oceanus Procellarum.
The Hell E crater is located in the southern part of the
Mare Nubrium, within the western part of the lunar plain Deslandres.
The 10-kilometer (6.2-mile) wide crater is quasi-circular, with an outward bulge along the western rim. Its unevenly surfaced floor is rolling, with a low but prominent central mound, narrow inner wall, and a sharply edged rim.
Hell E crater is at 34.5 degrees South latitude and 6.1 degrees West longitude. It falls about 2.2 kilometers (1.4 miles) from rim to floor.
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