Published 23:59 IST, October 22nd 2019

Chandrayaan 2 observes "impact craters" on Moon's surface: ISRO

ISRO has recently released the pictures of the "impact craters" on the south polar region of the moon clicked by the orbiter of the spacecraft Chandrayaan 2

Reported by: Rishabh Mishra
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Indian Research Organisation or ISRO has recently released pictures of impact craters on  south polar region of moon clicked by orbiter of Chandrayaan 2. se pictures show observations made by  Syntic Aperture Radar on lunar surface. Moon’s surface has a lot of impact craters owing to  continuous bombardment of celestial bodies, se craters are usually studied by a powerful remote sensing instrument to kw more about moon’s surface. 

Impact Craters 

impact craters are formed on moon’s surface by  continuous bombarded of meteorites, asteroids, and comets. This bombardment leads to formation of most distinct geographic features on lunar surface. As per ISRO, “Impact craters are approximately circular depressions on surface of  moon, ranging from small, simple, bowl-shaped depressions to large, complex, multi-ringed impact basins. In contrast to volcanic craters, which result from explosion or internal collapse, impact craters typically have raised rims and floors that are lower in elevation than surrounding terrain.” se craters are studied to kw more about origin and evolution of celestial structure.

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Chandrayan’s system of studying impact craters

According to ISRO, “Chandraayan 2 is designed to produce greater details about morphology and ejecta materials of impact craters due to its ability of imaging with higher resolution (2-75m slant range) and full-polarimetric modes in standalone as well as joint modes in S and L-band with wide range of incidence angle cover (9.5°-35°). In addition, greater depth of penetration of L-band (3-5 meters) enables probing buried terrain at greater depths. L & S-band SAR payload helps in unambiguously identifying and quantitatively estimating lunar polar water-ice in permanently shadowed regions.” In earlier craft like Chandrayaan 1 and NASA’s LRO  SAR systems such as S-band hybrid-polarimetric and S & X-band hybrid-polarimetric provided valuable data on scattering characterisation of ejecta materials of lunar impact craters. However, Chandrayaan 2 is more advanced as it provides much more details than previous systems in older craft did. 

Read | ISRO shares first findings from Chandrayaan-2 orbiter's payload CLASS

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23:40 IST, October 22nd 2019