Testing a new space-imaging instrument on the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia recently yielded a very detailed image of the site landing of Apollo 15 on the Moon.
For several years, Raytheon Intelligence &Space, an American company, has been developing a new radar imaging tool. The technology is not new, but researchers are trying to push the boundaries. During a test carried out last November, the new transmitter installed on the Green Bank telescope (West Virginia) sent a radar signal to the Moon, specifically targeting the Apollo 15 landing site on a disk of 3474.2 km in diameter .
When it bounced, this signal was then collected by the Very Long Baseline Array. This is a collection of radio telescopes scattered across the United States, essentially combining to create a single, gigantic radio telescope. The researchers were finally able to achieve spectacular resolution, showing structures as small as five meters .
In the image below is a crater called Hadley C about six kilometers in diameter (top middle). The winding path, the Hadley Rille, is an ancient lava tube that has collapsed millions of years ago. In the second image, the box identifies the landing site of the Apollo 15 mission. Launched in July 1971, it consisted of astronauts David R. Scott, James B. Irwin and Alfred M. Worden (remained in lunar orbit) .
This technology was just proof of concept allowing us to appreciate its full potential. It now paves the way for even more powerful radar imaging in the future. The team will soon be working on a high-powered 500-kilowatt radar system, potentially allowing scientists to study objects even as far away as Neptune .
“The planned system will be a leap forward in radar science, allowing access to never-before-seen features of the Solar System from here on Earth “, said the director of the Green Bank Observatory, Karen O’Neil.
Ultimately, this tool would indeed be useful for observing our Moon more closely, but not only. We could also appreciate the surfaces of other moons and planets in our system or even image asteroids and other space debris too faint to be seen by optical telescopes. This detection and tracking work could then help us to better understand the population of natural and man-made objects in near-Earth space, which could then aid in planetary defense against potentially dangerous objects.
