The Indian lunar probe Chandrayaan-1 is now mapping the Moon! Here’s a sweet image they just released:
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| Chandrayaan-1 image of the lunar south pole. Image courtesy ESA and ISRO. |
This is a shot of a region near the Moon’s south pole (click it to embiggen). The biggish crater is Moretus, and is 117 km (70 miles) across. The smallest features you can see here are roughly a mile across then. My mistake– what you’re seeing here is the rim of Moretus, which is very large and not itself in this image. It’s unclear what the resolution of this image is, but it may only be a few meters per pixel. I really like that one crater smack on top of a ridge!
Chandrayaan-1 has much higher resolution than this, so I’m assuming this image is not shown in full res. Still, it’s very pretty, and I’m happy to see it. I’m hoping the Indian Space Research Organization will release more images soon, as well as some in full resolution. Stay tuned… and as usual, check Emily’s blog, since she usually gets the inside word on these things.
