Tsiolkovskiy central peaks at sunset

LROC Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) oblique view of the central peaks of Tsiolkovskiy. (See the full-size mosaic assembled HERE.) LROC Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) mosaic M1111030948LR, from orbit 15992, December 24, 2012; 88.89° angle of incidence, long focus resolution roughly 8 to 10 meters per pixel from 89.44 km above 19.97°S, 119.15°E [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University].

Tsiolkovskiy (184 km in diameter, 20.37°S, 128.97°E), the landmark mare-inundated crater in the lunar highlands south of the farside equator, was conspicuous in our first look at the Moon's farside in 1959.

Also compare this scene - rolling under the sunset terminator (as the Moon was Waxing Full from our standpoint on Earth with the fully-illuminated and closer oblique perspective of the same region from a similar angle six months earlier, HERE.)

This latest LROC Narrow Angle Camera observation is among the 141,630 NAC stills, 23,88 TB of data, released in mid June to the Planetary Data System by the LROC team at Arizona State University, according to Ernest Bowman-Cisneros.

"Additionally," Bowman-Cisneros announced, "the LROC team has been reprocessing data from early in the LRO mission. We have re-released Volume 1, 2 and 3 of the EDR and CDR data sets. Reprocessing will continue until Volumes 4 through 11 have been updated.

"To date, the LROC Team has delivered 1,041,298 LROC images - totaling 123 TB for EDR and 235 TB for CDR products, and over 8,743 derived (RDR) data products to the NASA Planetary Data System," Bowman-Cisneros said. "The complete LROC PDS archive can be accessed via the URL http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/data or one can search for specific images or mosaic products using the LROC WMS Browse interface.

"Also be sure and try out our Quickmap interface."

The full LROC NAC mosaic highly resampled down to the 580 pixel maximum width allowable with this blog format. Captured just before midnight (UT) on Christmas Eve in 2012, most of the interior of of Tsiolkovskiy had already entered the two-week long lunar night, and the high crater rim and central peaks, towering 3200 meters over the crater floor, were mere hours behind. See the mosaic at higher resolutions by right-clicking on the images HERE. [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University].

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter continues to re-shape the envelope of what was once believed to be possible for long-term lunar missions, having long ago doubled it's record of returning more data to Earth than all other deep space missions combined.It begins a fifth year in lunar orbit, no small achievement itself, having orbited the Moon 18,313 times, as of 3 July, 2013, 2100 UT.

This LROC QuickMap 3D WAC-derived topographical view of Tsiolkovskiy's central peaks has become, more or less, a regular feature, as this distinctive farside crater has been the subject of many interesting posts, some highlighted below [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University].

Sample Posts regarding Tsiolkovskiy crater:

New oblique view of Tsiolkovskiy central peaks (December 26, 2012)
The Old and the Young at Tsiolkovskiy (October 31, 2012)
Weaving boulder trails on the Moon (July 11, 2012)
Bulging wrinkles at Tsiolkovskiy (January 11, 2010)
Regolith on Basalt (January 10, 2012)
Highland-Mare boundary of Tsiolkovskiy (September 29, 2011)
The Hummocks of Tsiolkovskiy (August 26, 2010)
More of Tsiolkovskiy's boulders and boundaries (August 26, 2010)
Small fractures in the mare floor of Tsiolkovskiy (August 25, 2010)
Tsiolkovskiy - Constellation Region of Interest (May 1, 2010)
Uplift, Boulders of Tsiolkovskiy (September 1, 2009)