China has unveiled the most detailed lunar atlas ever created. The high-resolution geologic map is the first primary update of lunar data since NASA’s Apollo program in the 1960s and 1970s.
The atlas, which took 100 researchers more than a decade to complete, captures the lunar surface in exquisite detail, showing 14 categories of structures, 17 rock types, 81 basin impacts and 12,341 craters.
The researchers announced the mapping task in 2012 with the goal of facilitating the variety of landing sites and resource locations for China’s future lunar missions. The scientists who produced the atlas, which is available in Chinese and English, say it will also be useful. to other countries.
“The geological atlas of the Moon is of great importance for reading the evolution of the Moon, establishing the site of a long-term lunar survey station, and utilizing lunar resources,” said Ouyang Ziyuan, co-principal investigator and professor of studies at the Institute. “It also allows us to better perceive Earth and other planets in the solar system, such as Mars,” the doctor of geochemistry from the Chinese Academy of Sciences told the official Xinhua news agency.
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Researchers created the knowledge of the atlas from the Chang’e-1 mission, an unmanned spacecraft that scanned the lunar surface from orbit between 2007 and 2009. More recent observations, taken from the surface of the moon via Chang ‘e-3 and Chang’s e-4. Lunar rovers in 2013 and 2019 respectively have shown observations taken from orbit.
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The researchers also cross-referenced their knowledge with that of India’s Chandrayaan-1 probe and NASA’s GRAIL and Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter missions.
The publication of this atlas comes at a time when China’s space systems are ambitious. China recently landed rovers on the Moon and Mars and finished the structure of the Tiangong space station in 2022. It is also leading efforts to build a foreign lunar survey station. It is not expected to be completed by 2030.
The China National Space Administration, China’s space agency, has also unveiled a dark matter probe, an X-ray telescope for neutron stars and black holes, and a quantum communications satellite.
Ben Turner works at Live Science based in the UK. He covers physics and astronomy, among other topics such as generation and climate change. He graduated from University College London with a BA in particle physics before studying as a journalist. When he’s not writing, Ben enjoys reading literature, playing guitar, and getting bogged down in chess.
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