Scientists identify over 1 lakh previously unrecognised Moon impact craters

Scientists have identified more than 1,00,000 new lunar impact craters, which were previously unrecognised. According to a study published in the journal Nature Communications, scientists used data from China's Chang'E-1 and Chang'E-2 Moon exploration missions to identify 1,09,956 new lunar impact craters. Scientists also estimated the age of the lunar impact craters with the help of the data.

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"The newly identified craters which are not included in the recognized craters, are divided into two sets of scales for manual assessment of detection accuracy. In the first set, all the newly identified craters with diameters larger than 100 km are involved in the assessment. In the second set, 10% of the other identified craters with diameters between 1-100 km are considered using statistical sampling by random selection. These craters are assessed by matching with three manual databases and independently inspected by four scientists from Key Laboratory of Lunar and Deep Space Exploration, Chinese Academy of Sciences, simultaneously," the study said. 

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Why identification is important?

The identification of the previously unrecognised lunar impact craters is important because craters are considered the equivalent of fossils on the Moon and help in revealing more about the history of Earth's natural satellite and the entire solar system. Impact craters are the most dominant lunar surface features. The International Astronomical Union (IAU) has recognized 9,137 lunar impact craters since 1919, of which only 1,675 have been dated. 

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Scientists applied the Transfer Learning (TL) method, which is one of the frontiers of Machine Learning (ML), to identify and date these previously unrecognised impact craters. They used deep neural networks and trained them to identify the new impact craters by data acquired from Chang'E-1 and Chang'E-2 missions. The Chang'E-1 mission was launched by China in October 2007, while the Chang'E-2 probe was launched in October 2010. China launched the Chang'E-5 mission in November 2020. 

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