Geological Laboratory: What is known about the lunar area where the Japanese lander landed
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The Japanese spacecraft “Moon Sniper” landed near a crater called Shioli. This lunar zone is rich in rocks and minerals, particularly olivine.
The Shioli Crater is located approximately 322 kilometers south of the Sea of Tranquility, a region near the lunar equator where humans landed on the moon for the first time as part of the Apollo 11 mission, CNN writes.
Shioli is a small crater with a diameter of about 268 meters. It is similar to the crater called Theophilus, which is more than 97 kilometers wide. This detail makes it particularly interesting for research.
“One of the great things about craters is that they “pull up” rocks from the depths and essentially give us a window into what’s beneath the surface of a planetary body.” says Dr. Gordon Osinski, professor of planetary geology at Western University in Ontario.
| PHOTO: JAXA |
He adds that Shioli is located on the surface, which is probably more than 1.6 kilometers deep. This will allow researchers to study lunar rock without drilling.
“I think that scientists chose this particular crater because the mineral olivine was discovered here. People’s eyes light up every time it’s mentioned, because we think it probably comes from the Moon’s mantle, which we’ve never sampled on a satellite before“, Osinski notes.
Olivine is a mineral of the silicate class. By its chemical nature, it belongs to quartz, containing impurities of magnesium and iron. At the same time, its properties are absolutely similar to two other stones: chrysolite and peridot.
In November, NASA released pictures of the Shioli crater taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, a spacecraft currently orbiting the moon. In the black and white photo, the crater looks like a spot of light.
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| PHOTO: NASA |
“The Moon, unlike the Earth, has no atmosphere, so it is not protected and is constantly bombarded by micrometeorites and radiation that damage its surface.” says Sarah Russell, professor of planetary sciences.
The color of the Shioli crater is light because radiation and micrometeorites have not yet darkened it. According to scientists, there are rocks in the crater that have not been damaged by cosmic weathering. This allows scientists to explore them and learn more about the Moon. The opportunities to study these rare rock samples make the moon a brilliant geological laboratory, Russell adds.
It should be noted that Japan became the fifth country to send its robotic spacecraft “Lunar Sniper” to the Moon. He landed on the surface of the satellite on January 19.
However, in the process, a problem arose with the solar batteries – they stopped producing electricity. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) said that the battery installed on the ship is probably not producing electricity because it is located at the wrong angle.
If the lander powers up again, it will be able to fulfill its goals of gathering unprecedented information about the region called the Sea of Nectar.
After landing in the crater, the spacecraft took 257 low-resolution images of the environment. If the lander manages to regain power, it will take more images.
It will be recalled that the American spaceship Peregrine One, which was supposed to deliver the flag of Ukraine to the moon, burned up in the Earth’s atmosphere.
Read also: NASA predicts that people will live on the moon already this decade
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