John Moore's "Watered Moon"

John Moore has a new video quite different than what we've posted of his work previously. About the video above he recommends:

"Several theories abound as to the Moon's formation. One in particular is 'The Giant Impact Theory', which suggests a Mars-sized object struck our proto-Earth, and ejected vast amounts of material that later accreted to form the Moon. The two worlds developed quite differently over time -- one sustaining [life as we know it], the other a barren landscape completely indifferent to our natural needs. Central to formation of life on Earth was water, which fueled the diversity of life at every level. For the Moon, however, it wasn't to be so. But what if the conditions were just right, and water could sustain on the lunar surface, what then would have been the outcome? Let's see..."

Without unnecessary delay, we'll include the following additional work by John, though it deserves its own post with explanatory illustrations. It deserves its own Poster. As it is, we include links to earlier related posts since these two extremities of lunar elevation, first identified by Japan's Kaguya investigators and refined by American teams using data from LRO, have been of particular interest here.

Related Posts:
Oblique views of the Moon's highest and lowest places (October 3, 2012)
View from Vavilov (January 31, 2012)
DLR: Flying over the three-dimensional Moon (December 1, 2011)
LROC's new Global Lunar Topography (November 16, 2011)
LOLA's deep Antoniadi (April 16, 2011)
LRO's unprecedented topography of the Moon (December 17, 2010)
Highest point on the Moon (October 26, 2010)
The deepest spot on the Moon nearly wasn't (September 17, 2010)
Lunar superlatives from LROC WAC (September 6, 2010)
The Moon's lowest of the  low (November 24, 2009)
Accurate topographic map of the Moon (June 13, 2009)
Spectacular refinements to Kaguya laser altimetry (May 28, 2009)
Best lunar topography derived from Kaguya (February 12, 2009)

Future Moon: 'Working the Crater"

Another excellent, very useful and imaginative virtual diorama by John Moore, created using the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter laser altimeter (LOLA) digital elevation model (DTM) and both LROC NAC and WAC photography.

Having impacted upon the eastern rim of lunar crater Virtanen (15.66°N, 176.72°E) - a Constellation program 'Region Of Interest' - a possible site for further exploration of the Moon), this small, unnamed 12-kilometre-sized crater holds some wonderful geological features for scientists and geologists to explore.

Some of these features are still not well understood, so setting up bases in and around such craters will lead to profound discoveries regarding how they formed and developed over time - from initial impact to final settlement.

Directly Related:
Lunar Landslides! (October 15, 2011)


John Moore: Exaggerating the elevation (October 17, 2012)
LROC: The Rays of Messier A (April 6, 2012) John Moore DTM-based survey included.

John Moore: Exaggerating the elevation

Exaggerating the elevation values in some LROC DEMs (and accompanying colour topographic overlays) can sometimes reveal more about features seen at normal elevation level. Here are just five, randomly-chosen DEMs, but many more available in the LROC website (see Credits) can be downloaded for further research.

John Moore