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The Clementine Mission


Clementine Images

Clementine Topographic Map of the Moon (Near Side/Far Side)
Image of Clementine laser altimetry (red = high; purple = low), showing the near and far sides of the Moon. Note the marked difference between the two hemispheres; large (2500 km diameter) South Pole-Aitken basin can be seen on the far side of the Moon

Image processing by Brian Fessler and Paul Spudis, LPI .

Clementine Topographic Map of the Moon (East/West)
Image of Clementine laser altimetry (red = high; purple = low), showing the west and east sides of the Moon. Prominent feature near center of west side is the Orientale basin, the youngest impact basin on the Moon.

Image processing by Brian Fessler and Paul Spudis, LPI

Clementine Iron Map of the Moon
Image derived from the Clementine global color data (in 750 and 950 nm wavelengths) showing the concentration of iron in the soils of the lunar surface. Note high iron levels of near side maria and elevated iron associated with South Pole-Aitken basin on the far side. Very low iron of north-central far side suggests large amount of nearly pure anorthosite, indicating early Moon melted globally. See Lucey et al. (1995, Science 268, 1150) for details on this method of iron mapping.

Clementine Titanium Map of the Moon
Image derived from the Clementine global color data (in 415 and 750 nm wavelengths) showing the concentration of titanium in the soils of the lunar surface. Note the very low levels of titanium in the highlands and the concentration of high-titanium maria in parts of Oceanus Procellarum (on the western near side) and Mare Tranquillitatis (the site of man’s first landing on the Moon) on the eastern near side. See Lucey et al. (1996, Science, in press) for details on this method of titanium mapping.

Clementine Albedo Map of the Moon
Global map of the albedo from the 750 nm filter of the Clementine uv-vis camera. This image shows the near side and far side of the Moon in Lambert, equal-area projection. On the near side, note the familiar appearance of the maria; the fresh, rayed crater is Tycho. On the far side, note the lack of maria as compared to the near side; the relatively dark area at center-bottom outlines the extent of the South Pole-Aitken basin. This view has been subsampled to a resolution of about 1 km/pixel, about 5 times lower than the full resolution data.

Earth Rise from the Moon's North Pole
View from Clementine of the full Earth over the north pole of the Moon. Crater with central peak in foreground is Plaskett (110 km diameter). On the Earth, the continent of Africa is clearly visible and nearly cloud free.

Aristarchus Region
Multispectral Mosaic of the Aristarchus Crater and Plateau

The Aristarchus region is one of the most diverse and interesting areas on the Moon. About 500 Clementine images acquired through three spectral filters (415, 750, and 1000 nm) have been processed and combined into a multispectral mosaic of this region (latitude 18deg 32 min, longitude 42 deg 57 min W). Shown here is a color-ratio composite, in which the 750/415 ratio controls the red-channel brightness, its inverse (415/750) controls the blue, and the 750/1000 ratio controls the green. Color ratios serve to cancel out the dominant brightness variations in the scene, which are caused by albedo variations and topographic shading, thus isolating the color differences related to composition or mineralogy.

The Aristarchus plateau is a rectangular, elevated crustal block about 200 km across, surrounded by the vast mare lava plains of Oceanus Procellarum. Clementine altimetry shows that the plateau is a tilted slab sloping down to the northwest, that rises more than 2 km above Oceanus Procellarum on its southeastern margin. The plateau was probably uplifted, tilted, and fractured by the Imbrium basin impact, which also deposited hummocky ejecta on the plateau surface.

The plateau has experienced intense volcanic activity, both effusive and explosive. It includes the densest concentration of lunar sinuous rilles, including the largest known, Vallis Schroteri, which is about 160 km long, up to 11 km wide, and 1 km deep. The rilles in this area begin at "cobra-head" craters, which are the apparent vents for low-viscosity lavas that formed the rilles. These and other volcanic craters may have been the vents for a "dark mantling" deposit covering the plateau and nearby areas to the north and east. This dark mantling deposit probably consists primarily of iron-rich glass spheres (pyroclastics or cinders), and has a deep red color on this image. Rather than forming cinder cones as on Earth, the lower gravity and vacuum of the Moon allows the pyroclastics to travel much greater heights and distances, thus depositing an extensive regional blanket.

The Aristarchus impact occurred relatively recently in geologic time, after the Copernicus impact but before the Tycho impact. The 42 km diameter crater and its ejecta are especially interesting because of its location on the uplifted southeastern corner of the Aristarchus plateau. As a result, the crater ejecta reveal two different stratigraphic sequences: that of the plateau to the northwest, and that of a portion of Oceanus Procellarum to the southeast. This asymmetry is apparent in the colors of the ejecta as seen in this image, which is reddish to the southeast, dominated by excavated mare lava, and bluish to the northwest, caused by the excavation of highlands materials in the plateau. The extent of the continuous ejecta blanket also appears asymmetric: it extends about twice as far to the north and east than in other directions, approximately following the plateau margins. These ejecta lobes could be caused by an oblique impact from the southeast, or it may reflect the presence of the plateau during ejecta emplacement.

The Clementine multispectral data will enable lunar geologists to reconstruct the three-dimensional composition and geologic history of this region. In this color-ratio composite, fresh highlands materials are blue, fresh mare materials are yellowish, and mature mare soils are purplish or reddish. The subsurface compositions, buried beneath a few meters or tens of meters of pyroclastics or Aristarchus ejecta, are revealed by craters which penetrated the surface layers, and by steep slopes such as those along the walls of the rilles. From this mosaic, we can see that the plateau is composed of a complex mixture of materials, but that the rilles formed primarily in lavas, except for the cobra-head crater of Vallis Schroteri, which formed in highland materials.

This mosaic covers only 0.4% of the lunar surface in three spectral bands, whereas the complete Clementine data set covers nearly 100% of the Moon in 11 spectral bands. This dataset will be invaluable for mapping the geology of the Moon and planning future exploration and utilization of lunar resources. (Image processing courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey in Flagstaff, Arizona.)

Tycho Crater
This is a false color image of the crater Tycho (43 deg S, 11 deg W; 85 km diameter). Although the natural color of the Moon is a brownish-gray, the color here has been artificially "stretched" by computer to aid in visual interpretation. The central peak complex (center) shows a blue coloration, indicating that different rocks occur here than elsewhere in the crater. The color images provided by the Clementine spacecraft will allow us to map rock types over the entire Moon.

Lunar Polar Composites

Video

The following movie shows the illumination of the south polar region of the Moon over the course of one month ( one lunar day). The Moon's spin axis is nearly perpendicular to its plane of orbit around the Sun. As a result, an observer in the polar area always sees the sun just slightly above or below the horizon. Irregularities such as mountain peaks or crater floors may be in either permanent sunlight or permanent darkness. This movie was made to search for areas of both types. Permanently lit areas could provide a landed spacecraft with solar power to survive the long (14 Earth day) lunar night. Permanent dark areas could contain cometary ice deposits, a valuable resource for use on the Moon. The south pole is located just inside the rim crest of the circular crater at center at about the 10 o'clock position. As you watch the illumination move 360 degrees around the pole, you will note several areas that seem to be permanently dark; these regions may contain ice. A few very small areas appear to be permanently, or nearly so, illuminated. Work on understanding the lunar polar environment continues with analysis of images from Clementine.

  MPEG Movie of the South Pole
  Short MPEG Movie of the South Pole

  Back to Clementine main page

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