Moon LRO LROC WAC Global Morphology Mosaic 100m v3

• Main Author: Arizona State University LROC Team
• Format: Still Image
• Language: unknown
• Published: Arizona State University 2013
• Subjects: Celestial; Lola; South Pole; South pole
• Online Access: https://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~328836~90097377; https://media.davidrumsey.com/MediaManager/srvr?mediafile=/Size4/RUMSEY~8~1/185/10592000.jpg

Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) Wide Angle Camera (WAC) aboard the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has allowed the instrument team to create a global mosaic comprised of over 15,000 images acquired between November 2009 and February 2011. The WAC maps the whole Moon in one month, however the solar incidence angle at the equator changes about 28° from the beginning to the end of the month. To even out the incidence angle variations (generally angles between 55-75 degrees), this morphology mosaic (at 643 nm), is comprised of data collected over three periods (1/20/2010 to 1/28/2010, 5/30/2010 to 6/6/2010, 7/24/2010 to 7/31/2010). The South Pole mosaic images were acquired 8/10/10 to 9/19/10 and the north polar images 4/22/10 to 5/19/10. Some gores were filled with data taken at other times. The non-polar images were map projected onto the GLD100, WAC-derived 100 meters per pixel (m), while polar images were map projected on the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA) shape model (80° to 90° N/S) and the GLD100 (60° to 80° N/S). In addition, the LOLA derived crossover corrected ephemeris and an improved camera pointing provide accurate positioning of each WAC image. Because the polar images were acquired at a different season than the equatorial images, and the lunar photometric function is not perfectly known, there can be a brightness difference where the polar mosaics meet the equatorial mosaics. This has been greatly reduced in version 3 (created in June 2013). Mission and Instrument Information: The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) launched the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft to the Moon in June 2009 (Tooley et al., 2010) carrying a variety of instruments that continue to return high-resolution images of the lunar surface from its eccentric polar mapping orbit (Petro et al., 2019). The LRO is a robotic spacecraft designed to acquire data to prepare for and support future human exploration of the Moon. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) is a system ...