Instrument on board Chandrayaan-1 finds deepest crater on moon

MOON

Houston, Mar 5 (PTI) Scientists have discovered moon's
biggest and deepest crater--some 2,400 kms long and 9 km deep
-- using data from a NASA instrument that flew aboard India's
maiden unmanned lunar mission Chandrayaan-I.

The US Space agency's Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3)
detected the enormous crater -- the South Pole-Aitken basin --
that was created when an asteroid smacked into moon's southern
hemisphere shortly after the formation of earth's only natural
satellite.
"This is the biggest and deepest crater on the moon --
an abyss that could engulf the United States from the East
Coast through Texas," said lead researcher Noah Petro of
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt.
According to Petro, who had presented his result
yesterday at the Lunar and Planetary Science meeting in
this city in Texas, "The impact of the asteroid collison
punched into the layers of the lunar crust, scattering that
material across the moon and into space".
"The tremendous heat of the impact also melted part of
the floor of the crater, turning it into a sea of molten
rock," NASA said.
That was just an opening shot. Asteroid bombardment over
billions of years has left the lunar surface pockmarked with
craters of all sizes, and covered with solidified lava,
rubble, and dust, it added.
Moon Mineralogy Mapper was one of 11 instruments onboard
Chandrayaan-I. PTI APA
KAB


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