© ISRO/NASA/JHUAPL/LPI/Cornell University/SmithsonianNever seen before: The image shows a radar strip overlain over an Earth-based, Arecibo Observatory radar telescope image of the Moon's surface. Taken Nov. 17, 2008, the radar strip shows a part of the Moon never seen before: a portion of Haworth crater that is permanently shadowed from Earth and the Sun. The only way to explore these regions is by using an orbital radar such as the Mini-SAR.
India's Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, has captured the images with the help of a NASA-built radar device that is part of the probe's suite of scientific instruments.
The imaging technique can detect features as small as 150 metres wide, and is being used to map the dark side of the Moon and search for evidence of water ice.
New resolution
"The only way to explore such areas is to use an orbital imaging radar," said Benjamin Bussey from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland, USA. "This is an exciting first step for the team which has worked diligently for more then three years to get to this point."
Launched on 22 October 2008, from India's Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Chandrayaan-1 has a two-year stint orbiting the Moon (see, India's spacecraft enters lunar orbit).
It will provide a detailed map of the mineral and chemical composition of the surface along with topography. This includes mapping dark craters that are permanently out of sight from both the Earth and the Sun.
New images taken with NASA's Mini-SAR (synthetic aperture radar) on November 17, 2008, are the first to show what these craters are made from, and what they look like.
One image shows part of the Haworth crater, near the moons south pole. Another, the western rim of the Seares crater, an impact feature near the Moon's north pole. The bright areas on the images show slopes coming out from the ground, or a rough surface.
Surprises to come
By collecting further data, scientists hope to establish if deposits of ice exist at the poles of the Moon. Although it is unlikely that the Moon naturally harbours its own deposits of water, some theories suggest that icy comets may have collided with the Moon in the past, leaving deposits of ice at its poles.
"The idea that a watery comet hit the moon, and that ice from that has survived is surprising - but it could happen," commented Malcolm Walter, an astrobiologist with the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia.
"Whatever they find will be very interesting," he added. "Parts of the Moon are not well known, there are likely to be all sorts of surprises. As has happened with other planets, the more detailed the images we get, the more surprises we have."
Further radar observations of the Moon will be made with NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), to be launched in April 2009.
The public will still be left in the dark no matter what they find. What about the bases on the moon?