The moon may have many more lunar craters than previously known

The scientists used data from 7,895 previously identified craters and 1,411 dated craters and were able to apply machine learning to train a deep neural network. Using information from China’s first and second lunar orbits – Chang’e 1 and Chang’e 2 – the network identified 109,956 new craters. The two unmanned spacecraft were launched in 2007 and 2010 respectively.

Impact craters (are) the most diagnostic features of the lunar surface. That is in stark contrast to the surface of the Earth. It is very difficult to trace the history of the Earth of the impact of asteroids and comets over the past 4 billion years. , ‘said study author Chen Yang, from the College of Earth Sciences at Jilin University and the Key Laboratory of Lunar and Deep Space Exploration at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

“The Earth and the Moon have been hit by the same impact craters over time, but large lunar craters have undergone limited deterioration over billions of years. Therefore, impact craters on the Moon can track Earth’s evolution,” she said via email. .

The craters on the moon lack water, an atmosphere and tectonic plate activity – three forces that erode Earth’s surface, meaning that all but the most recent meteor impacts are not visible.

On the moon, pretty much every dent goes nowhere. The dusty footsteps of astronauts who walked on the moon during the Apollo missions are still there.

According to the Lunar Planetary Institute, about 80% of the Earth’s surface is less than 200 million years old, while more than 99% of the lunar surface is more than 3 billion years old. The age of a large crater can also be determined by counting how many small craters it contains.

This latest study is not the first to use machine learning to detect craters of the moon, said Mohamad Ali-Dib of the Institute for Research on Exoplanets at the University of Montreal.

He was part of a team at the University of Toronto at Scarborough that used data from a laser altimeter, a device used aboard satellites orbiting the planet to map terrain, rather than optical images captured by the Chinese team were used to detect craters. The UT team identified about 6,000 previously unidentified craters on the Moon in research published in 2018.

“Machine learning can be used to detect craters on the Moon,” he said via email. Craters are ‘a window into the dynamic history of the solar system.

China only became the third country in the world to successfully collect rocks from the moon when the unmanned Chang’e-5 mission returned to Earth in mid-December with the country’s first lunar samples.