[LINK] "China's map leaps over the moon"

[rfmcdonald]

Over at Asia Times, Peter Brown's article takes a look at the recent discovery of the exact location on the Moon of the 1973 Soviet Lunokhod-2 unmanned rover. The state of the art in lunar mapping is advancing just barely more rapidly than the desire of interested Terrans to find things on the Moon's surface.

In March, Phil Stooke, a Canadian professor at the University of Western Ontario's Center for Planetary Science and Exploration, solved the mystery that began in June 1973 when all communications between Lunokhod-2 and its Soviet controllers back on Earth ceased, after completing several months of work on the lunar surface. Stooke pinpointed its location using data and imagery generated by US National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO).

Stooke is one of the world's leading experts on lunar geography and the author of The International Atlas of Lunar Exploration, published in 2007. He made his discovery on the evening of March 15 after spending a few hours examining pictures of the moon taken by the LRO.

"The idea that the rover was lost for 37 years, as is often reported, is a bit exaggerated - its position was known approximately, just not exactly," said Stooke. "I regard what I did as finding the rover in an image, rather than finding it on the moon."

[. . .]

With the LRO imagery in hand, Stooke could easily observe such things as where Lunokhod-2's operator in Russia drove it back and forth in order to allow it to carry out its detailed measurement of the moon's magnetic field. And the small crater where Lunokhod-2's radiator became covered in dust was easily spotted, too. It was that dust that triggered an overheating of the rover and soon terminated the Lunokhod-2 mission as a result.

"Lunokhod-2 was easy to find - I knew roughly where to look and as soon as I did its tracks stood out easily. That's in stark contrast with the first rover, Lunokhod - 1, whose tracks were almost invisible. The Russians found that one. I probably would not have found it," said Stooke.