Characterizing

LROC NAC Images

Created by: Belfry High

School

Participants• Taylor Runyon• Mickayla Walters• Sarah Compton• Staci Coleman• Brianna Sullivan

Our PurposeOur purpose of doing this project is to understand

morphology and the composition of the Tycho Crater and add to our knowledge of the moon.

It’s important to understand the morphology and composition of the moon’s craters so we know how our planets and other aspects of the universe came to be.

During this power point presentation, we are going to explain our examinations of LROC NAC simple craters. Aspects included in the presentation are •Diameter•Depth•Diameter/Depth•Slope of crater wall

Our Project

We are also going to describe the crater’s wall and answer the questions below• Does the craters have boulders?•If so, what are the boulder’s size?•Can something be said about the regolith based on boulder size and trail behind the boulder?

ContinuedDuring this power point we are also going to describe the crater floor, including•Impact Melt•Flat•Boulders•Size of bouldersWe are also going to identify whether the craters are located on mare or highlands.

Characteristic Explanation of the Tycho Crater

Before After

Diameter- red Depth- blue

Slope- yellow

How to Determine the Diameter of a Crater The diameter of an object is defined as any straight line segment that passes through the center of a circle and whose endpoints are on the circle. Clearly the Ejecta of the Tycho Crater is not a circle, but it’s still possible to find the diameter. Using Image J, a program that helps us figure the accurate measures, we first set a scale for the size of the picture compared to the actual size of the crater itself. Then, we use the line selection tool and trace a straight line from edge to edge through the center of the circle. Lastly, by clicking the option “analyze” we can have accurate measures of the diameter. After following these steps, we came to find that the diameter of this ejecta of the crater is 1.667 km.

Diameter

DEPTH

The depth of an object is defined as a dimension taken through an object or body of material, usually downward from an upper surface, horizontally inward from an outer surface, or from top to bottom of something regarded as one of several layers. Since we can’t actually go to the moon and measure the depth of the Ejecta of the Tycho crater, we just measured the diameter of the shadow to find the depth. We found the depth to measure .894 km.

The depthThe depth

Slope Finding slope was perhaps the more challenging characteristic to find. Slope is defined as rise/run. To find this characteristic we measured the length and width of the shadow which will project the rise and run of the ejecta of the Tycho Crater. We found that the slope was -.5 km by taking the rise, .66 km, and dividing it by the run, 1.29 km. The line of the slope runs downward so the slope would be negative.

Finding the slope of the Tycho Crater

A= .66km B= 1.29km

-.5 km

Floor of the Tycho Crater

The Crater Floor-1.667 km diameter-Impact melt is when rocks were heated to high temperatures during contact, and melted when it did contact the moon. The melted rock flowed across the floor of the moon.-Impact melt flowed downhill, and pooled.

The Tycho crater is located in the southern highlands. The southern highlands are areas on the moon with higher elevation and lighter in color. This area on the moon is populated with many craters, such as the Tycho crater.

* Red indicates location of crater

The Crater’s Location

The

The Crater Wall

The Tycho Crater Wall

- There are not any boulders on the crater wall.-The walls of the crater are just terraced.-There are also central mountains which are easily viewed be binoculars.-The wall is also sloping down to rough floor.

The Range of Crater Diameters

Largest Diameter: 31 km

Smallest Diameter: 3 km31-3=28 km

The range of the diameters is 28 kilometers.A presence of crypto-mare unit at a depth of 10

kilometers estimates that there may possibly be a depth-diameter relationship.

We took the latitudes and longitudes of each crater, and put the coordinates on the Microsoft Excel program. Then on earthpoint.us . This website allows us to take our coordinates of surrounding craters, and markers are placed at the exact location of each crater with a label.Step 1

Step 2

Patterns in Tycho CraterSurrounding the Tycho crater, are craters of various size.Smaller craters surrounding the Tycho are secondary craters.Secondary craters formed from larger chunks of the Tycho Crater’s ejecta.Secondary craters are impact craters formed by the ejecta that was thrown out of a larger crater. They sometimes form radial crater chains.-It’s a Copernican crater due to its well developed ray pattern. Rays reach up to 1,500 kilometers. Sections of these rays can still be observed when Tycho is illuminated only by earthlight.

Craters of various size is shown above

An example of moon rays

Mineralogy -Lava ponds found near the Tycho crater contain rich Ca-pyroxene.-The Tycho Crater contains an average titanium content. - Plagioclase rich blocks

Pyroxene sample A titanium concentration map of the moon

Features-Conspicuous central peak-Wall-Rim-Ejecta blanket-Volcanic activity leading to modifications of central peak-Lava pond-Pyroclastics-Basalts

• The Tycho crater is relatively young with an estimated age of 108 million years. •It’s age suggests that the impactor belongs to the Baptistina family of asteroids. •There’s also a 70% possibility that the Tycho crater was created by a fragment that created Chicxulub Crater on Earth 65 million years ago which is believed to be the extinction of the dinosaurs.

Formation

Tycho Crater Chicxulub Crater

Scientists think that both of these craters are formed from the same

asteroid fragment.

Acknowledgments We would like to thank a few people before ending this project…-Dr. Haridas Chandran (Doc)-Mr. Gannon-All our teachers for giving us the knowledge and support-Andrew Shaner-Justin Filiberto-NASA, for inspiring us.Lastly, we would like to thank our parents for allowing us to follow through with this project.