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3D Printered Structure of Lacus Mortis Pit Crater with Assumption of a Cave Underneath

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3D Printered Structure of Lacus Mortis Pit Crater with Assumption of a Cave Underneath 2nd International Planetary Caves Conference (2015) 9015.pdf 3D PRINTERED STRUCTURE OF LACUS MORTIS PIT CRATER WITH ASSUMPTION OF A CAVE UNDERNEATH. Ik-Seon Hong1, Eunjin Cho1, Yu Yi1, Jaehyung Yu1, Junichi Haruyama2, 1Department of Astron- omy, Space Science and Geology, Chungnam National University, Daejeon 34134, South Korea; [email protected], 2Department of Solar System Sciences, Institute of Space and Aeronautical Science, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, Sagamihara, Kanagawa 252-5210, Japan. Introduction: Several places presumed to be the en- until the actual exploration on foot and the small shad- trances of caves were discovered in the Moon and ow in the northern side also indicates that there is a Mars [1][2][3][4][5][6]. Besides, about 200 pit-looking ramp alongside the wall of the pit, it is considered that places, which are known as pit craters (abbreviated to this ramp could be an entrance to the inside of the pit. pits), have been discovered and these can be candidates Also, since the collapsed ceiling materials covered the of caves. The pits are found in the regions of the lunar floor of the pit, it is assumed that the entrance of the mare and in places that experienced melting due to cave was buried or the size of the entrance is much meteorite impact [7][8]. Other study showed that those smaller compared to the thickness of ceiling. Thus, the pits could be entrances of caves through comparing entrance is set to have a small size. Moreover, the big those pits to the actual cave entrance of the Earth [9]. size pits discovered up to the present time may have The Google Lunar X Prize (GLXP) project is a pub- some inner space inside the pit that can be considered lic competition that is planning to explore the Moon suitable for an outpost once the space is excavated using a rover. Among those competitors, Astrobotic slightly more. The existence of inner space is con- Technology Inc. and HAKUTO Team each plan to firmed through the incidence angle of the sun and the explore a pit using a rover [10][11]. For both teams, emission angle of the satellite. Incidence angle is angle the target landing site is a pit of Lacus Mortis. In this between solar ray incident and normal of planetary pit, there is a ramp down to the bottom of the crater. surface, and emission angle is angle between satellite Thus, it is believed that the rover could approach the camera and normal of planetary surface. Also, there are inside of the pit. Although, there was a report insisting a few grabens such as Rimae Burg, it is likely that there no evidence of cave entrance structure inside this pit might be lava tubes below these grabens [12]. Since the [8], all the image data of this pit are shadowed to some pit is not far away from the graben, if there is a lava portion, the complete shape of pit is not possible to tube below the surface, the pit could serve as an en- identify. Thus, it is arguable whether there is no inner trance to this cave. space. Area of Interest: The region of interest, the Lacus Mortis pit, is located at 44.96°N, 25.61°E of Lacus Mortis (Fig. 1). Lacus Mortis is in a lunar mare region and composed of basalt and has several rilles. The pit is located about 1 km away from Rimae Burg. The pit is oval shaped and the length of the major axis is about 260 m while the length of the minor axis is about 100 m. Also, there is a ramp enabling access to the inside of the pit (Fig. 2) Data and Method: For this study, the optical im- age data of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) were used. The LROC consists of two cameras; Wide Angle Camera (WAC) and Narrow Angle Cam- era (NAC). The Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) has a maximum resolution of 0.5 m/pixel and is suitable for analyzing the topography of the lunar surface. Fig. 1. Location of Lacus Mortis pit. The location of The detailed information necessary to build a 3D Lacus Mortis in lunar scale (A); the location of pit in model is obtained by analyzing the NAC image data. It the Lacus Mortis (B); detailed look of pit location (C); is assumed that there is space of a cave across the east- Rimae Burg locates in the left of the pit in a diagonal ern slope of the pit. Since the southern shape of the pit line. could not be identified due to shadows and the interior space of the pit showed be assumed to take any form 2nd International Planetary Caves Conference (2015) 9015.pdf Fig. 2. Lacus Mortis pit morphology. Image ID is M126759036L. There is a ramp in the east of the pit to enable access to the interior of the pit. Results: The 3D model rendering was made using 3DS MAX from Autodesk Inc. on a scale of 2000:1. The length of the internal cave in the cross sectional view is 8.6 cm and the height of the internal cave is Fig. 4. 3D model rendering images of Lacus Mortis pit. 3.75 cm. Also, a little bit of tolerance is allowed in (A) is a sectional view against the minor axis and each interval of the cave. The reason why the cave is shows the structure of the cave at a glance. (B) shows not in a cylindrical shape is due to the assumption that the shape of the pit. (C) shows an aeroview of the pit the cave was originally cylindrical, but gradually, the and shows the entire shape of the pit. (D) and (E) show crust material of the ceiling collapsed down to pile up the interior of the pit in different angles. and fill the lower part of the cylinder. Each dimension of the model is as follows: the Conclusion: The structure of the Lacus Mortis pit, length of the major axis is 18 cm, the length of the mi- which is a target landing site of Astrobotic Technology nor axis is 5 cm, the depth at the endpoint of ramp is Inc. and HAKUTO team, was investigated and a 3D 6.45 cm. There is an unobservable area due to shadow, model was developed. In spite of the assumption that even when the time of the NAC image data is different. there is a cave inside the pit, the shape of the model is In this case, it was assumed that the model was sym- quite consistent with the satellite image data. Moreover, metrical relative to the major axis, and the model was this model allows for various viewpoints. Thus, a lunar also displayed in various perspectives(Fig. 3 and 4). surface viewpoint enables us to determine the topogra- Also, mesh smooth filtering was applied to express phy and to have provisions on how to operate an actual curvatures. rover. In addition, the 3D printing of this model will enable intuitive analysis and also could be used as a convenient tool to publicize lunar exploration missions. References: [1] Haruyama J. et al. (2009) Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, L21206. [2] Haruyama J. et al. (2010) 41st LPSC. [3] Haruyama J. et al. (2011) 28th Interna- tional Symposium on Space Technology and Science. [4] Cushing G. E. et al. (2007) Geophys. Res. Lett., 34, L17201. [5] Cushing G. E. (2012) J. Cave Karst Stud., 74, 33-47. [6] Jung et al. (2014) J. Astron. Space Sci., 31, 141-144. [7] Robinson M. S. (2012) Planet. Space Sci., 69, 18-27. [8] Wagner R. V. and Robinson M. S. (2014) Icarus, 237, 52-60. [9] Hong IS. et al. (2014) J. Astron. Space Sci., 31, 131-140 [10] Huber S. A. et al. Fig. 3. Wireframe image of 3D model. (A) indicates a (2014) LPI Contributions, 1820, 3065. [11] Britton N. sectional view against the major axis and takes similar et al. (2015) Field and Service Robotics, 259-272. [12] shape shown in Fig. 5. (B) represents a sectional view Greeley R. (1971) Mod. Geol., 2, 207-223 against the minor axis and shows the placement of the cave. (C) shows a floor plan and shows the shape of the pit and the internal cave. (D) is an aeroview of the model and shows entire shape of the model. .
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