September 24, 2014

Black Splash

image from LRO ACT-REACT QuickMap

Korolev X is a well-worn, 26 km diameter crater on the lunar farside. Sometime after its formation a nearby impact dug a fresh 13 km diameter crater, breaching Korolev X’s northern wall and sending a tongue of debris tumbling onto its flat floor. Cascading down this debris is a 13 by 5 km sheet of dark and smooth impact melt, still showing the shrinkage cracks that formed as it cooled. The melt didn’t advance as a single flood, but rather on many glacier-like fronts, each several hundred meters across (B). As the melt spread onto Korolev X’s floor overlapping fronts wrapped around high points leaving kipuka-like islands of older more heavily-cratered terrain (C). Location: Latitude 0.56, Longitude -159.44

Ross Sackett, Memphis Astronomical Society

Technical Details
Images from Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter wide-angle and narrow-angle cameras. 3D visualization using the PIPE 3D Live tool. Images processed in Photoshop to improve contrast.

Related Links
21st Century Atlas chart F2.

Yesterday's LPOD: Pink and Grey Lavas

Tomorrow's LPOD: Switching the High Side

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