finding impact deposits on the moon?

There must be places on the lunar surface where asteroids have impacted
"gently" enough to leave behind a noticeable deposit of non-lunar
material. I'm thinking particularly of the sort of asteroids that
produce iron meteorites on Earth.

Have any such impact deposits be found? Would it be possible to locate
them using existing data sets?

Thank you,
Joe Strout

Joe Strout wrote in news:joe-C637D0.13351620062006
@comcast.dca.giganews.com:

There must be places on the lunar surface where asteroids have impacted
"gently" enough to leave behind a noticeable deposit of non-lunar
material. I'm thinking particularly of the sort of asteroids that
produce iron meteorites on Earth.

Have any such impact deposits be found? Would it be possible to locate
them using existing data sets?

Remember that the moon has no atmosphere so even tiny dust grains will hit
at full speed dictated by orbital mechanics.

Some info here about what was actually brought back:

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/expmoon/Apollo_Samples.html

Klazmon.





Thank you,
Joe Strout

"Joe Strout" wrote in message
...
There must be places on the lunar surface where asteroids have impacted
"gently" enough to leave behind a noticeable deposit of non-lunar
material. I'm thinking particularly of the sort of asteroids that
produce iron meteorites on Earth.

Have any such impact deposits be found? Would it be possible to locate
them using existing data sets?

Thank you,
Joe Strout

I think it is pie in the sky at the present time. But if I had to make a
suggestion, I'd say try the Aristarchus plateau. That would be the most
obviously place I would start my search.

http://images.google.com/images?hl=e...ch&sa=N&tab=wi

George

George wrote:
"Joe Strout" wrote in message
...

There must be places on the lunar surface where asteroids have impacted
"gently" enough to leave behind a noticeable deposit of non-lunar
material. I'm thinking particularly of the sort of asteroids that
produce iron meteorites on Earth.

Have any such impact deposits be found? Would it be possible to locate
them using existing data sets?

Thank you,
Joe Strout


I think it is pie in the sky at the present time. But if I had to make a
suggestion, I'd say try the Aristarchus plateau. That would be the most
obviously place I would start my search.

http://images.google.com/images?hl=e...ch&sa=N&tab=wi

George


Any asteroid coming in, will be dropping from
a very large distance,and in doing so, will
get added almost the moon escape velocity.
So there will not be any gentle touchdowns,
unless you use a braking rocket engine.

"Sjouke Burry" wrote in message
. ..
George wrote:
"Joe Strout" wrote in message
...

There must be places on the lunar surface where asteroids have impacted
"gently" enough to leave behind a noticeable deposit of non-lunar
material. I'm thinking particularly of the sort of asteroids that
produce iron meteorites on Earth.

Have any such impact deposits be found? Would it be possible to locate
them using existing data sets?

Thank you,
Joe Strout


I think it is pie in the sky at the present time. But if I had to make
a
suggestion, I'd say try the Aristarchus plateau. That would be the most
obviously place I would start my search.

http://images.google.com/images?hl=e...ch&sa=N&tab=wi

George
Any asteroid coming in, will be dropping from
a very large distance,and in doing so, will
get added almost the moon escape velocity.
So there will not be any gentle touchdowns,
unless you use a braking rocket engine.

Umm, ok. And this is relevant to the discussion, how?

George

George wrote:
"Sjouke Burry" wrote in message
. ..

George wrote:

"Joe Strout" wrote in message
...


There must be places on the lunar surface where asteroids have impacted
"gently" enough to leave behind a noticeable deposit of non-lunar
material. I'm thinking particularly of the sort of asteroids that
produce iron meteorites on Earth.

Have any such impact deposits be found? Would it be possible to locate
them using existing data sets?

Thank you,
Joe Strout


I think it is pie in the sky at the present time. But if I had to make
a
suggestion, I'd say try the Aristarchus plateau. That would be the most
obviously place I would start my search.

http://images.google.com/images?hl=e...ch&sa=N&tab=wi

George

Any asteroid coming in, will be dropping from
a very large distance,and in doing so, will
get added almost the moon escape velocity.
So there will not be any gentle touchdowns,
unless you use a braking rocket engine.


Umm, ok. And this is relevant to the discussion, how?

George


See first part about a gentle impact,
anything faster then 2km/sec will never be gentle.

"Sjouke Burry" wrote in message
. ..
George wrote:
"Sjouke Burry" wrote in message
. ..

George wrote:

"Joe Strout" wrote in message
...


There must be places on the lunar surface where asteroids have
impacted
"gently" enough to leave behind a noticeable deposit of non-lunar
material. I'm thinking particularly of the sort of asteroids that
produce iron meteorites on Earth.

Have any such impact deposits be found? Would it be possible to
locate
them using existing data sets?

Thank you,
Joe Strout


I think it is pie in the sky at the present time. But if I had to make
a
suggestion, I'd say try the Aristarchus plateau. That would be the
most
obviously place I would start my search.

http://images.google.com/images?hl=e...ch&sa=N&tab=wi

George

Any asteroid coming in, will be dropping from
a very large distance,and in doing so, will
get added almost the moon escape velocity.
So there will not be any gentle touchdowns,
unless you use a braking rocket engine.


Umm, ok. And this is relevant to the discussion, how?

George
See first part about a gentle impact,
anything faster then 2km/sec will never be gentle.

Why would a 1 km/s impact be considered gentle?

George

In article ,
Sjouke Burry wrote:

I think it is pie in the sky at the present time. But if I had to make a
suggestion, I'd say try the Aristarchus plateau. That would be the most
obviously place I would start my search.

http://images.google.com/images?hl=e...nG=Google+S e
arch&sa=N&tab=wi

George


Any asteroid coming in, will be dropping from
a very large distance,and in doing so, will
get added almost the moon escape velocity.
So there will not be any gentle touchdowns,
unless you use a braking rocket engine.

Fine, "gentle touchdown" was an unfortunate bit of hyperbole; let's get
over it. For the same reason as the above (i.e. lack of appreciable
atmosphere), any ejecta from an impact follows simple parabolic arcs.
Much of it will end up falling right back into the crater -- including
the material from the impactor, even if it were completely vaporized.
Atoms don't just disappear.

So, back to the question: does anyone have any suggestion as to HOW one
would find resource-rich impact sites?

For example, check out the crater at about 27.5 N, 47.0 E, shown as
bright blue in this Clementine image: http://tinyurl.com/hmbuy
This is the Clementine Ratio set, where blue represents the ratio of 414
nm to 750 nm wavelengths; blue areas, if I understand the description
properly, are those iron-rich areas with higher titanium.

Does this represent material deposited from an iron- and titanium-rich
asteroid? Or is it merely the underlying basaltic material exposed by
the impact?

Also, the Clementine data is of rather low resolution -- I'd love to see
the same area in the Lunar Prospector data, but I haven't found anyplace
that makes this data easily available at high resolution, like
pdsmaps.wr.usgs.gov does for the Clementine data. Any tips on mining
the LP data?

Thanks,
- Joe