An odd-looking impact feature on the lunar surface that was seen by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC).
Credit: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University
A strange-looking scar on the moon has astronomers wondering whether the cause of this peculiar impact feature is a piece of space debris that smashed into the lunar surface or a spacecraft that made a planned crash landing decades ago.
NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera spotted the curious impact using its narrow-angle camera, which has such a high resolution that it can often see small features from Apollo-era spacecraft that either landed or crashed. [See LRO's image of the weird moon crater]
The contrasting dark and light regions indicate differences in the composition and maturity of the lunar surface features, James Ashley, a postdoctoral associate at Arizona State University (ASU), wrote in a blog post about the LROC image.
Ashley suggests that the "butterfly-shaped" mass of lunar rubble seen in the picture could be the remnants of NASA's Lunar Orbiter 2, which made a planned crash landing on the moon in 1967 at the end of its mission.
The unmanned Lunar Orbiter 2 was a spacecraft used in 1966 to help scope out possible landing sites for the Apollo and Surveyor missions.
"According to the 2007 International Atlas of Lunar Exploration, the Lunar Orbiter 2 spacecraft was commanded to crash into the lunar far side surface on October 11, 1967," Ashley wrote.
The probe became well-known in 1967 when it returned a now-famous image of the Copernicus crater, which was dubbed the "Picture of the Century" by news media at the time. [Photos: Our Changing Moon]
NASA's Lunar Orbiter 2 was an unmanned imaging spacecraft used in 1966 to aid with Apollo and Surveyor landing site selection. The spacecraft became famous in 1967 with the public release of this oblique image of the Copernicus crater (one of only four obliques collected), which was hailed as the "Picture of the Century" by the news media of the day.
Credit: NASA
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Weird Moon Crater May Be Crash Site of Old NASA Spacecraft
