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European Southern Observatory Captures New Sharp View of the Moon
By SPACE.com Staff
posted: 02:15 pm ET
09 August 2002
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lunar A new photograph of the Moon might be the sharpest image of the lunar surface ever recorded from the ground, European astronomers said Friday. The photo shows an area about 435 miles (700 kilometers) from the Apollo 11 landing site. The location is in the eastern hemisphere, just north of the lunar equator, and right between two of the major "seas", Mare Tranquillitatis (Sea of Tranquillity) and Mare Foecunditatis (Sea of Fertility). Taken in near-infrared light with the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile, the picture was made using a system of adaptive optics that corrects for blurring effects of Earth's atmosphere. It covers an area 37 by 28 miles (60 by 45 kilometers). A sunlit crater named Cameron, which is about 6 miles (10 kilometers) in diameter, is surrounded by a good amount of fairly level terrain, some hills, and many smaller craters. These features are all situated at the rim of an older, eroded crater named Taruntius, which is about 35 miles (56 kilometers) across. A small part of the multiple walls of Taruntius are seen in the upper right corner and also to the left of the bottom center of the picture. The photo was taken late in the lunar "day" and the Sun is low above the western horizon. The long shadows greatly enhance even shallow surface formations. Measuring the length of shadows, astronomers infer the height of some of the formations. For instance, the shadows of the two peaks at the lower center of the photo are about 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) long, indicating that these formations are about 1,640 feet (500 meters) tall. More Moon News | Astronotes
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