Scientists produce high-resolution images of 17 craters on Moon's South Pole

In a significant achievement, a group of researchers led by Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) have produced the highest-resolution images of the craters in the Moon’s south pole. The polar regions of the Moon house craters and several depressions but have been not been studied much as they never receive sunlight. Interestingly, the scientists captured some of the craters in the region that was recently chosen by NASA for its upcoming Artemis mission.

Scientists capture 17 craters

According to a report by Phys.org, the team of researchers covered 17 craters in the Moon’s permanently shadowed regions (PSRs). They reportedly exploited the reflected sunlight from nearby hills and produced images using a novel image processing method. The scientists from MPS, the University of Oxford and the NASA Ames Research Center were faced with the challenge of obtaining images of the craters at high resolution. The photographs are vulnerable to too much noise owing to small amounts of light.

This challenge was overcome using a machine learning algorithm called HORUS (Hyper-effective nOise Removal U-net Software) to minimise noisy images. This algorithm reportedly used 70,000 calibration images taken by NASA’s 2009 Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) from the Moon’s shadowed areas. Apart from this, scientists also gathered information about camera temperature and the spacecraft's trajectory to identify different features of the topography. This algorithm allowed the scientists to capture images in the resolution of 1–2 meters per pixel, which reportedly is five to ten times that of already obtained pictures. 

However, scientists have stated that even the images do not provide evidence of frozen water in the said areas. As per MPS scientist Valentin Bickel, few targeted regions might be warmer than the others and evidence of lunar water’s presence on the surface isn’t clear. However, he added that the same could be hidden underground or mixed with dust. 

NASA’s quest to the lunar south pole

US Space Agency NASA announced last week that it has chosen Moon's south pole for deploying the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) in 2023 under the Artemis mission. The rover will be assigned with the task to map the unexplored regions of the Moon and conclude if ice or any other potential resources exist in those areas. It will do so by examining an area of 93 square kilometres in the Nobile region and will collect samples from at least three drill locations.

(Image: @MOON4PIC/Twitter)