Radiance Contrasts at Possible Lunar Water Ice Exposures Seen by #ShadowCam: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/PSJ/adb8d1 -> Innovative approaches advance search for ice on the Moon: https://www.soest.hawaii.edu/soestwp/announce/news/innovation-advances-search-lunar-ice/
Radware Bot Manager Captcha

The #Moon’s Most Shadowy Places Can’t Hide From #NASA’s New Camera
There are more than 300 permanently shadowed craters on the moon, and the darkness hides an intriguing mystery: oases of frozen water, which could provide a key resource for astronauts living there in the future. New views are the fruits of #ShadowCam, an instrument that NASA provided for #Danuri, #SouthKorea's orbiter that arrived at the moon in December.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/25/science/moon-nasa-shadowcam-craters.html
https://archive.ph/FyGBx #space
The Moon’s Most Shadowy Places Can’t Hide From NASA’s New Camera

ShadowCam, a NASA instrument aboard a South Korean spacecraft, is taking pictures of the moon where the sun doesn’t shine.

The New York Times
These permanently shadowed regions on the #moon are very dark, right? Well it is true that the sun never shines in those regions, but scientists have shown that you get a lot of secondary light from sunlight reflecting on nearby topography (crater rims, mountains etc.). At least, that was learned from studying the Shackleton crater on the south pole of the moon, with #NASA 's #ShadowCam instrument on the Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (#Danuri ) satellite.
http://shadowcam.sese.asu.edu/images/1357
Complicated Lighting

Finally, we can see within the Shackleton permanently shadowed region (PSR)!  In this area, the floor is littered with boulders resting on a large hummocky deposit.  Brightness contrasts arise from the interplay of topography, secondary illumination, and albedo differences. Note that two shadows can be seen emanating from some of the larger boulders. The image is 1300 meters wide, ShadowCam M020993790S [NASA/KARI/Arizona State University].

We Can Now See Into the Permanently Shadowed Craters on the Moon
An instrument called ShadowCam is giving NASA’s planned Artemis missions to the Moon some advanced views of a landing site. It’s mounted to the Danuri Korea Pathfinder Lunar orbiter sent to the Moon last year. Lately, this amazing camera has been sending back some highly detailed images of the lunar north and south pole regions.
https://www.universetoday.com/161166/we-can-now-see-into-the-permanently-shadowed-craters-on-the-moon/ #moon #shadowcam #craters #SouthPole
We Can Now See Into the Permanently Shadowed Craters on the Moon

The ShadowCam camera orbiting the Moon onboard Korea's Danuri orbiter is returning high-res images of shadowed lunar regions inside craters.

Universe Today
ShadowCam Captures Spectacular Photos of Moon’s South Polar Region
NASA’s ShadowCam instrument is flying with five other instruments aboard KARI’s Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (KPLO), also known as Danuri, which launched on August 4, 2022.
https://www.sci.news/space/shadowcam-moon-images-11874.html #shadowcam #moon #SouthPole #image
APOD: 2023 May 5 - Shackleton from ShadowCam

A different astronomy and space science related image is featured each day, along with a brief explanation.

ShadowCam maakt spectaculaire beelden van de zuidpool van de Maan

NASA’s ShadowCam vliegt met vijf andere instrumenten aan boord van KARI’s Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (KPLO), ook bekend als Danuri, die op 4 augustus 2022 werd gelanceerd.

https://www.kuuke.nl/shadowcam-maakt-spectaculaire-beelden-van-de-zuidpool-van-de-maan/

#Aristarchus #Danuri #korea #maan #ShadowCam

ShadowCam maakt spectaculaire beelden van de zuidpool van de Maan

NASA’s ShadowCam vliegt met vijf andere instrumenten aan boord van KARI’s Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (KPLO), ook bekend als Danuri, die op 4 augustus 2022 werd gelanceerd.

Kuuke's Sterrenbeelden

Since the lunar spin axis is only tilted 1.5 degrees, the #Moon barely has seasons. The poles are in a perpetual state of dawn to dusk, with the Sun always on the horizon.

As a result, depressions near the poles never receive direct solar illumination, areas known as permanently shadowed regions or #PSRs.

LROC has imaged nearly all of the Moon at meter scale, except within PSRs. The LROC Narrow Angle Camera design was modified so that #ShadowCam is 200x more sensitive than the NAC to image within PSRs, taking advantage of light dimly reflected from nearby topography.

For film photography, this would be the equivalent of increasing from ISO 100 to greater than 12,800 without increasing grain.

http://shadowcam.sese.asu.edu/images/1284

ShadowCam • Seeing in the Shadows

The #NASA-funded #ShadowCam instrument released their first photo of a permanently shadowed crater near the #Moon's South Pole on Jan. 9. Permanently shadowed craters don't receive any direct illumination from the sun and are so cold that water ice is thought to be present near the surface. ShadowCam is so sensitive that it can use indirect sunlight reflected off the surrounding high terrain to "see in the dark"!

https://www.shadowcam.asu.edu/images/1284

#ShadowCam was designed with maximum sensitivity to light, such that it could provide images of permanently shadowed regions of the #moon's poles.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/01/koreas-new-orbiter-just-gave-us-a-remarkable-view-of-the-moons-hidden-pole/

Here’s the story of a lunar image that doesn’t look remarkable, but really is

What you're actually looking at is an area of the Moon that is in total darkness.

Ars Technica