New Delhi, Dec 27: An experiment onboard India`s
maiden moon mission -- Chandrayaan-I -- has found iron-bearing
minerals in abundance on the lunar surface, initial reports
suggest.
Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) instrument of National
Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has beamed back
images of the Orientale Basin on the western limb of the moon.
An analysis of the images indicates abundance of
iron-bearing minerals such as pyroxene, said Carle Pieters, a
senior scientist of US-based Brown University and principal
investigator for the M3 experiment.
"The image is from a single wavelength of light that
contains thermal emission, providing a new level of detail on
the form and structure of the region`s surface," he said.
The images were captured by the M3 during the
commissioning phase of Chandrayaan-1, launched on October 22,
as the spacecraft orbited the moon at an altitude of 100 kms.
"The M3 provides us with compositional information across
the moon that we have never had access to before," Pieters
said, adding that the ability to now identify and map the
composition of the surface in geologic context provided a new
level of detail needed to explore and understand the moon.
M3 is one of the 10 instruments onboard the unmanned
Chandrayaan, conducting experiments while the spacecraft
orbits over the moon next two years.
Five instruments were indigenously built by the Indian
Space Research Organisation (ISRO), while the remaining six
experiments are of foreign origin, including three from the
European Space Agency, two from NASA and one from Bulgaria.
Bureau Report
