South Pole-Aitken Basin tagged posts

Lunar igneous activities including intrusive and extrusive magmatism, and their products contain significant information about the lunar interior and its thermal state. Their distribution is asymmetrical on the nearside and farside, reflecting the global lunar dichotomy. In addition to previously returned lunar samples all from nearside (Apollo, Luna, and Chang’e-5), samples from the South Pole-Aitken (SPA) basin on the farside have long been thought to hold the key to rebalancing the asymmetrical understandings of the Moon and disclosing the lunar dichotomy conundrum.

Earlier this year, the Chang’e-6 mission of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program, successfully launched on May 3, landed on the lunar surface on June 2, and returned to the Earth on June 25 carrying a total of 1935...

A new study shows four distinct compositional regions within and around the Moon’s largest impact basin. The findings could help guide future exploration of the basin. Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

Scientists have long wanted to retrieve rock samples from the Moon’s South Pole-Aitken basin, and a new study could be helpful in locating an ideal landing site. A detailed study of a giant impact crater on the Moon’s far side could provide a roadmap for future lunar explorers.

The study, by planetary scientists from Brown University, maps the mineralogy of the South Pole-Aitken (SPA) basin, a gash in the lunar surface with a diameter of ~2,500 kilometers (1,550 miles)...

A topographic view of the South Pole-Aitken Basin. Reds are high; blues are low. Mafic Mound, (the reddish area in the center) stands 800 meters above the surrounding surface. Credit: NASA/Goddard/MIT/Brown

Within a giant impact basin near the moon’s south pole, there sits a large mound of mysterious origin. Research by geologists suggests the mound was formed by unique volcanic processes set in motion by the impact that formed the basin. The formation, known as Mafic Mound, stands about 800m tall and 75 km across, smack in the middle of a giant impact crater known as the South Pole-Aitken Basin. This new study suggests that the mound is the result of a unique kind of volcanic activity set in motion by the colossal impact that formed the basin.

“If the scenarios that we lay out for its for...