“New Instrument Reveals the Dark Secrets of the Moon’s South Pole for Artemis Mission Astronauts”

Jakarta –

Artemis mission astronauts who will land and set foot on the Moon will explore a new area of ​​our natural satellite that has not been touched before, namely the south pole of the Moon.

At the Moon’s south pole, there is a crater in permanent shadow which will have major implications for permanent settlement on the Moon. This area has a lot of ice water.

Given the dark area, it’s not easy to photograph from orbit. Thanks to a new instrument, we can get a closer look at the areas of the Moon that humans will next step on.

NASA’s ShadowCam, the name of the instrument, is located aboard the Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (KPLO) belonging to the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI), AKA Danuri.

Danuri has been orbiting the Moon since last December and the instrument has photographed several panoramas in perpetual or transient darkness. ShadowCam is designed for low light conditions, making it up to 200 times more sensitive than similar instruments such as the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Narrow Angle Camera.

Quoted from IFL Science, ShadowCam’s main target is the polar regions and there are always dark craters to study around the poles. Specifically, NASA is interested in the area around Shackleton Crater, where the Artemis III lander is predicted to take place.

Currently, there are 13 sites that allow the option for that. All of these sites are located at six degrees latitude from the Moon’s south pole.

NASA’s hadowCam shots are impressive. In Shackleton’s image, we can see the trail left by the boulder as it rolled down the crater wall.

ShadowCam might even spot the astronauts if they’re walking around, as long as it doesn’t reach the reach of sunlight, since the image will saturate easily. This camera gets enough light to take pictures from two sources.

One of them, is the light reflected by nearby geological features such as mountains or crater rims. Whereas the other, only occurs when the Moon area is at night, and the light source is Earthshine.

Just as Moonlight is sunlight that is reflected on the surface of the Moon to Earth, the Earth also reflects some of the Sun’s light on the Moon.

Especially when the Moon’s disk is not visible, the light is enough to illuminate the Moon. These conditions allow ShadowCam to make some observations of the Moon’s equatorial region during the night there.

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(rns/fyk)