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 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 age of lunar impact craters with help of data.

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" newly identified craters which are not included in recognized craters, are divided into two sets of scales for manual assessment of detection accuracy. In first set, all newly identified craters with diameters larger than 100 km are involved in assessment. In second set, 10% of or identified craters with diameters between 1-100 km are considered using statistical sampling by random selection. se 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 Acemy of Sciences, simultaneously," study said. 

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Why identification is important?

identification of previously unrecognised lunar impact craters is important because craters are considered equivalent of fossils on Moon and help in revealing more about history of Earth's natural satellite and entire solar system. Impact craters are most dominant lunar surface features. 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 Transfer Learning (TL) method, which is one of frontiers of Machine Learning (ML), to identify and date se previously unrecognised impact craters. y used deep neural networks and trained m to identify new impact craters by data acquired from Chang'E-1 and Chang'E-2 missions. Chang'E-1 mission was launched by China in October 2007, while Chang'E-2 probe was launched in October 2010. China launched Chang'E-5 mission in November 2020. 

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