While humanity is already exploring exoplanets that exist in stellar worlds remote at colossal distances, the Moon, which is literally under our noses, as it turned out, still contains many secrets, for example, it hides craters previously undetected by astronomers. In particular, American scientists were able to identify two relatively young and previously unknown craters on the dark side of our natural satellite.
The discovery was made by astronomers led by Kathleen Mundt of the Southwest Research Institute in the United States of America, who analyzed an array of visual data from the lunar orbiter Lyman-Alpha Mapping Project. The LAMP probe scans the surface of the dark side of the moon, emitting ultraviolet light and recording its reflection. In addition, it is equipped with a Mini-RF radar system, thanks to which the spacecraft does not miss a single detail.
The study, which aimed to look more closely at already known craters, unexpectedly revealed two relatively young impact trails on the far side of the Moon. Their age, equal to 16 and 75 million years, is extremely small by cosmic standards. Both craters are located near the south pole of the moon, which explains the fact that they have remained undiscovered until now - the south pole of our natural satellite is the most difficult part of its surface to observe. Scientists have established the age of the craters by a number of external signs, among which, for example, the absence of outer rings, arising from the older traces of the impacts of asteroids, which in huge numbers once bombarded the ancient moon.
“The technique we have used for detecting craters can be successfully applied to the study of other objects in the solar system, for example, the planet Mercury, the dwarf planet Ceres, or the asteroid West,” said the author of the discovery, Kathleen Mundt, who added that the entire history of the Universe is one way or otherwise it is associated with various collisions of celestial bodies, therefore, the study of their traces is the most important process for science. "By observing lunar craters, we can establish the approximate time ranges of their formation, thanks to which we can take a closer look at the formation of the solar system," she said.