Image courtesy: ISRO
The Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) Chandrayaan-3 mission, which took flight from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, marked the beginning of an ambitious exploration set for groundbreaking discoveries.
Image courtesy: ISRO
The latest among them is a 160-km-wide crater located near the Chandrayaan-3 landing site, uncovered from data sent back by the Pragyan rover, currently exploring the Moon’s South Pole region.
The discovery, first reported by scientists from Ahmedabad’s Physical Research Laboratory and published in the latest issue of Science Direct, is garnering significant interest from the global scientific community.
Image courtesy: ISRO
Scientists believe that the 160-km-wide crater predates the formation of the Aitken Basin, an immense impact crater recognised as the largest and oldest basin on the lunar surface.
Image courtesy: NASA/GSFC/University of Arizona
The discovery was made when Pragyan traversed a highland terrain approximately 350 km from the Basin.
Image courtesy: Prof. Anil Bhardwaj (Twitter)
The antiquity of the newly discovered crater, partially buried under layers of debris from subsequent impacts, has the potential to be a treasure trove of information that could throw new light in understanding the Moon’s geological history and evolution.
The material surrounding the crater contains remnants of earlier impacts on the lunar surface. Scientists who analyse the data believe that it could unearth significant details about the Moon’s formative years.
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Additionally, high-resolution images captured by the Pragyan rover’s optical cameras reveal critical details about the crater’s structure and composition, allowing researchers to make informed hypotheses about its origin and the geological process that shaped it over billions of years.
The crater’s close proximity to Aitken also makes it an ideal candidate to study in order to better paint a picture of planetary evolution. In the past, Aitken has played a similar role for scientists.
Image courtesy: ISRO
Such opportunities are invaluable in planetary science, where understanding the history of celestial bodies can provide broader insights into the formation of planets and satellites.
As researchers around the world prepare to analyse more data from the Pragyan rover, the implications of this ancient crater discovery could resonate far beyond our lunar neighbour, influencing future missions and our understanding of planetary formations.