LRO Camera Imaging of the Moon: Apollo 17 and other Sites for Ground Truth

Details LRO Camera Imaging of the Moon: Apollo 17 and other Sites for Ground Truth LRO Camera Imaging of the Moon: Apollo 17 and other Sites for Ground Truth

Dec 2009

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009agufm.u31a0012j&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2009, abstract #U31A-0012

Mathematics

Logic

[5400] Planetary Sciences: Solid Surface Planets, [5464] Planetary Sciences: Solid Surface Planets / Remote Sensing, [6250] Planetary Sciences: Solar System Objects / Moon

Scientific paper

One of the fundamental goals of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) is the determination of mineralogic and compositional distributions and their relation to geologic features on the Moon’s surface. Through a combination of imaging with the LRO narrow-angle cameras and wide-angle camera (NAC, WAC), very fine-scale geologic features are resolved with better than meter-per-pixel resolution (NAC) and correlated to spectral variations mapped with the lower resolution, 7-band WAC (400-m/pix, ultraviolet bands centered at 321 and 360 nm; 100-m/pix, visible bands centered at 415, 566, 604, 643, and 689 nm). Keys to understanding spectral variations in terms of composition, and relationships between compositional variations and surface geology, are ground-truth sites where surface compositions and mineralogy, as well as geology and geologic history, are well known. The Apollo 17 site is especially useful because the site geology includes a range of features from high-Ti mare basalts to Serenitatis-Basin-related massifs containing basin impact-melt breccia and feldspathic highlands materials, and a regional black and orange pyroclastic deposit. Moreover, relative and absolute ages of these features are known. In addition to rock samples, astronauts collected well-documented soil samples at 22 different sample locations across this diverse area. Many of these sample sites can be located in the multispectral data using the co-registered NAC images. Digital elevation data are used to normalize illumination geometry and thus fully exploit the multispectral data and compare derived compositional parameters for different geologic units. Regolith characteristics that are known in detail from the Apollo 17 samples, such as maturity and petrography of mineral, glass, and lithic components, contribute to spectral variations and are considered in the assessment of spectral variability at the landing site. In this work, we focus on variations associated with the ilmenite content (a Ti-rich mineral) of the soils and with known compositional and mineralogic characteristics of different geomorphic units. Results will be compared to those derived from analysis of data from the Clementine UV-VIS camera and from the Hubble Space Telescope.

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