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NASA NTRS1974

Meteoritic material on the moon

Micrometeorites, ancient planetesimal debris from the early intense bombardment, and debris of recent, crater-forming projectiles are discussed and their amounts and compositions have been determined from trace element studies. The micrometeorite component is uniformly distrubuted over the entire lunar surface, but is seen most clearly in mare soils whereas, the ancient component is seen in highland breccias and soils. A few properties of the basin-forming objects are inferred from the trace element data. An attempt is made to reconstruct the bombardment history of the moon from the observation that only basin-forming objects fell on the moon after crustal differentiation. The apparent half-life of basin-forming bodies is close to the calculated value for earth-crossing planetesimals. It is shown that a gap in radiometric ages is expected between the Imbrium and Nectaris impacts, because all 7 basins formed in this interval lie on the farside or east limb.

Morgan, J. W.↗

NASA NTRS1994

The unified lunar control network: 1994 version

The objective of the unified lunar control network is to combine a series of control networks into one compatible network with its origin at the center of mass of the Moon and its coordinates referred to the mean Earth/polar axis system. The initial unified system contained 130 nearside points from Apollo data and 1026 from telescopic data. It also contained ten Mariner 10 points. The total number of points was 1166. The current network includes modifications to the past network and extends the coverage. Coordinates of points north of the Apollo region have been recomputed based on Galileo images from the second Earth-Moon flyby. Coordinates of points in the Apollo region were held fixed; however, coordinates of points north of the Apollo region in the telescopic region and many Mariner 10 points were recomputed. All of the Mariner 10 points were remeasured and integrated into the network. Additional points in the Apollo region including the farside have been added. The unified network now contains 1478 points. Apollo, Mariner 10, and Galileo pictures all contained some farside points. The coordinates of the 1478 points are available only in the microfiche supplement to this paper.

Davies, Merton E.↗

NASA NTRS2016

Moonrise: Sampling the South Pole-Aitken Basin to Address Problems of Solar System Significance

A mission to land in the giant South Pole-Aitken (SPA) Basin on the Moon's southern farside and return a sample to Earth for analysis is a high priority for Solar System Science. Such a sample would be used to determine the age of the SPA impact; the chronology of the basin, including the ages of basins and large impacts within SPA, with implications for early Solar System dynamics and the magmatic history of the Moon; the age and composition of volcanic rocks within SPA; the origin of the thorium signature of SPA with implications for the origin of exposed materials and thermal evolution of the Moon; and possibly the magnetization that forms a strong anomaly especially evident in the northern parts of the SPA basin. It is well known from studies of the Apollo regolith that rock fragments found in the regolith form a representative collection of many different rock types delivered to the site by the impact process (Fig. 1). Such samples are well documented to contain a broad suite of materials that reflect both the local major rock formations, as well as some exotic materials from far distant sources. Within the SPA basin, modeling of the impact ejection process indicates that regolith would be dominated by SPA substrate, formed at the time of the SPA basin-forming impact and for the most part moved around by subsequent impacts. Consistent with GRAIL data, the SPA impact likely formed a vast melt body tens of km thick that took perhaps several million years to cool, but that nonetheless represents barely an instant in geologic time that should be readily apparent through integrated geochronologic studies involving multiple chronometers. It is anticipated that a statistically significant number of age determinations would yield not only the age of SPA but also the age of several prominent nearby basins and large craters within SPA. This chronology would provide a contrast to the Imbrium-dominated chronology of the nearside Apollo samples and an independent test of the timing of the lunar cataclysm.

Zeigler, R. A.↗