New NASA Temperature Maps Provide 'Whole New Way Of Seeing The Moon'

New NASA Temperature Maps Provide 'Whole New Way Of Seeing The Moon'

ScienceDaily (Sep. 19, 2009) — NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), an unmanned mission to comprehensively map the entire moon, has returned its first data. One of the seven instruments aboard, the Diviner Lunar Radiometer Experiment, is making the first global survey of the temperature of the lunar surface while the spacecraft orbits some 31 miles above the moon.

Diviner has obtained enough data already to characterize many aspects of the moon's current thermal environment. The instrument has revealed richly detailed thermal behavior, throughout both the north and south polar regions, that extends to the limit of Diviner's spatial resolution of just a few hundred yards.

"Most notable are the measurements of extremely cold temperatures within the permanently shadowed regions of large polar impact craters in the south polar region," said David Paige, Diviner's principal investigator and a UCLA professor of planetary science. "Diviner has recorded minimum daytime brightness temperatures in portions of these craters of less than -397 degrees Fahrenheit. These super-cold brightness temperatures are, to our knowledge, among the lowest that have been measured anywhere in the solar system, including the surface of Pluto."

"After decades of speculation, Diviner has given us the first confirmation that these strange, permanently dark and extremely cold places actually exist on our moon," said science team member Ashwin Vasavada of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "Their presence greatly increases the likelihood that water or other compounds are frozen there. Diviner has lived up to its name."

These observations, made during Diviner's "commissioning phase," provide a snapshot in time of current polar temperatures that will evolve with the lunar seasons.

"It is safe to conclude that the temperatures in these super-cold regions are definitely low enough to cold-trap water ice, as well as other more volatile compounds, for extended periods," Paige said. "The existence of such cold traps has been predicted theoretically for almost 50 years. Diviner is now providing detailed information regarding their spatial distribution and temperatures."