The Shackleton Crater is a large impact crater located at the south pole of the Moon. It is named after the Antarctic explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton. The crater is approximately 21 kilometers (13 miles) in diameter and 3.2 kilometers (2 miles) deep, making it one of the largest and deepest craters at the lunar south pole.
The Shackleton Crater is unique because it is located in a region that is in permanent darkness, making it an attractive target for future lunar exploration. This is because the shadowed regions of the lunar poles contain water ice that could be used as a resource for future manned missions to the Moon. The sunlight never reaches the Shackleton Crater because the Moon doesn’t spin around its own axis as the Earth does. The crater’s interior walls also contain a variety of minerals, including cold traps of water ice.
Harnessing the powers of the ShadowCam
NASA has used the powers of its hypersensitive camera, the ShadowCam, in order to snap a clear image of the Shackleton Crater of the Moon. The camera’s high sensitivity to light made it possible for the space agency to capture a high-resolution image of the crater.
While this photo of the Moon's surface might appear unremarkable, it actually provides a view of an area that lies in total darkness, revealing the shadowed wall and floor of Shackleton Crater in new detail: https://t.co/QKtdRwFMB2
[📸: NASA/KARI/Arizona State University] pic.twitter.com/VPJLc4ioPj
— Ars Technica (@arstechnica) January 12, 2023
There are a large number of craters on the Moon. The Moon has been bombarded by meteoroids, asteroids, and comets for billions of years, creating a surface that is heavily cratered. The Moon’s surface is estimated to have over 300,000 impact craters with a diameter greater than 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) and millions more that are smaller.
The largest crater on the Moon is the South Pole-Aitken Basin, which is about 2,500 kilometers (1,600 miles) in diameter and over 13 kilometers (8 miles) deep. Other notable craters include the Tycho, Copernicus, and Aristarchus craters, which are easily visible from Earth with a telescope.
The Moon’s craters come in a variety of sizes and shapes, from tiny, shallow craters to massive, multi-ringed basins.
