Status Report

ESA SMART-1 Image: Close-up on Cuvier crater ridge

By SpaceRef Editor

August 22, 2006

Filed under ESA SMART-1 Mission, Europe, Moon, Smart-1

This high-resolution image, taken by the Advanced Moon Imaging Experiment (AMIE) on board ESA’s SMART-1 spacecraft, shows the young crater ‘Cuvier C’ on the Moon.

AMIE obtained this sequence on 18 March 2006 from a distance of 591 kilometres from the surface, with a ground resolution of 53 metres per pixel. The imaged area is centred at a latitude of 50.1º South and a longitude of 11.2º East, with a field of view of 27 km. The North is on the right of the image. “This image shows the resolving power of the SMART-1 camera to measure the morphology of rims and craters in order to diagnose impact processes”, says SMART-1 Project scientist Bernard Foing, “or to establish the statistics of small craters for lunar chronology studies”.

Cuvier C, a crater about 10 kilometres across, is visible in the lower right part of the image. Cuvier C is located at the edge of the larger old crater Cuvier, a crater 77 kilometres in diameter. The upper left quadrant of the image contains the smooth floor of Cuvier, only one fourth of which is visible in this image.

Crater Cuvier was named after the creator of the comparative anatomy, Georges Cuvier, a 19th century French naturalist (1769 – 1832).