A Light Bulb Overhead

A light bulb-shaped volcanic vent on the Moon. The vent is prominently centered. The narrow end points to the south-west corner and the wide end points to the north-east corner. The vent’s slopes in yellow-to-red tones indicate a depression or crater. A thin strip of blue running lengthwise down the center is the trough of the vent. The relatively flat surface around the vent is in shades of blue. This area is also textured with many smaller craters whose slopes are indicated with yellow. A jagged region running across the vent width-wise, as well as the bottoms of many of the surrounding small craters, is missing data and colored black.
Colored to emphasize slope, with steeper slopes in red and yellow, and shallower slopes in blue, this digital terrain model (DTM) reveals the depths of a volcanic crater called Schrödinger G. The image merges an LROC Narrow Angle Camera DTM (NAC_DTM_SCHRODVENT_P752S1392) and a KPLO ShadowCam DTM (created from images M035062160S, M035097507S) at 7 m/pixel. Centered at 75.316°S,139.223°E, the image is approximately 11 kilometers wide. North is up. Colors indicate slope min: 0°, blue up to 14°, yellow and orange up to 38°, red through 64°. Areas without data are black [NASA/GSFC/KARI/Arizona State University].

Using recently-released ShadowCam images, the ShadowCam team has created a DTM that fills in much of a permanently shadowed region (PSR) inside the wide end of this volcanic crater, or vent, called Schrödinger G. As a PSR, this ironically light bulb-shaped region receives no direct sunlight, making ShadowCam images the first to reveal the vent's interior at high resolution. Like similar volcanic features found on Earth, the vent forms a depression at the peak of a cone. The vent is about 8.5 kilometers long and 5.5 kilometers wide, and plunges about one kilometer deep from the peak of the rim. The surrounding cone, likely formed from pyroclastic ejecta from the vent, is about 30 kilometers in diameter. Schrödinger G is one specific feature within the larger Schrödinger impact basin, located on the southern lunar farside (see Schrödinger Vent: A Region Rich With Lunar Treats).

A roughly-circular portion of the volcanic vent in grayscale to display texture and depth. The lunar regolith slopes towards the center-bottom. In the upper-left region, a white arrow draws attention to a cluster of white spots that are distinct from the gray around them. A graphical scale is provided in the lower right measuring one kilometer. This portion of the vent is about four kilometers wide.
This orthoimage of the PSR illuminates much of Schrödinger G vent at high resolution. A group of bright, rocky outcrops are marked by an arrow. Source images: M035062160S, M035097507S. Registered to elevation data from the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter at 7 m/pixel, centered at 75.27°S, 139.28°E. North is up. [NASA/KARI/Arizona State University]

Images of the Schrödinger G PSR give lunar scientists more information about the vent, its local geology, and the potential scientific value of samples. In the NAC images (released in 2011), rocky outcrops were visible outside of the PSR. Now, similar outcrops (the bright white features marked by an arrow in the image above) can also be seen inside the vent. These outcrops corroborate the elevation of a stratigraphic layer that scientists believe to be pre-eruption surface. The layer is now buried under pyroclastic material likely ejected from Schrödinger G less than three billion years ago, during the Eratosthenian period (See video: Looking Inside the Schrödinger G Pyroclastic Vent). The pyroclastic ejecta, which is up to 500 meters thick at the rim, comes from deep within the lunar crust and mantle and remains essentially undisturbed. Samples of this material would help scientists date the period of volcanic activity, the Schrödinger basin, and other geological features and processes related to this region of interest. DTMs like the one above help scientists understand the geology of the region and provide necessary topographic data for any future exploration.

Explore the entire merged DTM of the pyroclastic cone and the permanently shadowed vent in this Zoomify! Elevation is given in meters from the Moon's average radius. North is down.

Related Featured Images

Schrödinger Vent: A Region Rich With Lunar Treats

Sometimes You Just Need to Vent

Craters on the Schrödinger Pyroclastic Cone

Posted by Mateja Saiz on 26 November 2024