With apologies to Frank and everyone else who recorded the great standard, Fly me to the Moon.I took a lot of great classes during grad school at the University of Arizona My favorite of all was Geology of the Solar System. I enjoyed learning how geology concepts are applied to the study of planetary surfaces outside of the Earth. My fav topic was impact cratering. This was my first exposure to the process of impact cratering and I have been hooked ever since. If you want to, you can do an online version of the impact cratering labwe did in the lab portion of the class. (Just be sure you have the latest version of Java installed.)

To most people, craters are holes in the ground. This is true, but there is quite a variety of features associated with impact craters such central peaks and terraced walls. Some craters are so large they have multiple rings, almost like a target. Here is an example of what is called a "simple" crater:


Simple craters, such as Linne Crater above, are simply bowl-shaped craters without central peaks or terraced walls. Linne Crater is a little less than 1.5 miles in diameter. (Can you see the boulders?) "Complex" craters have central peaks and/or terraced walls. Here is an example of a lunar complex crater:


Daedalus Crater (~58 miles in diameter), seen in the above image, has both a central peak structure and terraced walls. Schrodinger Basin (~200 miles in diameter) has a peak-ring structure:


(Basin is another name for a very large crater.) Orientale Basin (~580 miles in diameter) on the Moon is an example of a multi-ringed basin:


Pictures of craters are all fine and dandy to look at, but they don't really give you a sense of what it would be like to be inside one of them. To get that kind of perspective, you need to combine imagery with elevation data to create 3D models which can be made into animations. LPI has been kind enough to produce a few of these for your viewing pleasure. My favorite is a flyover of the lunar complex crater, King Crater. Other flyover animations can be found on the LPI's Lunar Surface Flyovers page. So grab some popcorn and soda and watch some flyover animations. I promise, they won't make you too sick.

by: Andy S.

Tuesday Apr-05-2011