The Moon’s Tycho crater revealed in great detail

The National Science Foundation’s Green Bank Observatory (GBO) and National Radio Astronomical Observatory (NRAO) and Raytheon Intelligence & Space (RI&S) have released a new high-resolution image of the moon, the highest ever taken from the ground using a new radar. on the Green Bank Telescope (GBT).

The resolution of the new image of Tycho Crater is close to five meters by five meters and contains around 1.4 billion pixels. The image covers an area of ​​200 km by 175 km in order to capture the entire crater, which measures 86 km in diameter. “This is the largest synthetic aperture radar image we have produced to date with the help of our partners at Raytheon,” said Dr Tony Beasley, director of the National Radio Astronomical Observatory and vice president of radio astronomy at Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI). “While there is still work to be done to improve these images, we are delighted to share this incredible image with the public and look forward to sharing more images from this project in the near future. ”

The GBT, the world’s largest fully steerable radio telescope, was equipped at the end of 2020 with new technology developed by Raytheon Intelligence & Space and GBO, allowing it to transmit a radar signal into space. Using the GBT and antennas from the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA), several tests have been carried out since then, focusing on the surface of the moon, including the Tycho crater and NASA landing sites. Apollo.

How is this low power radar signal translated into images that we can see? “This is done with a process called synthetic aperture radar, or SAR,” explained Galen Watts, GBO engineer. “As each pulse is transmitted by the GBT, it is reflected off the target, the surface of the moon in this case, and it is received and stored. The stored pulses are compared to each other and analyzed to produce an image. L emitter, target, and receivers are all constantly moving as we move through space. While you might think that this might make producing an image more difficult, it actually produces more important data. ”

This movement causes slight differences from one radar pulse to another. These differences are examined and used to calculate an image resolution higher than what is possible with stationary observations, as well as to increase the resolution of distance to target, how fast the target is approaching or moving away from the receiver. , and how the target moves in the field of view. “Radar data like this has never been recorded before at this distance or resolution,” Watts said. “This has already been done at distances of a few hundred kilometers, but not on the scale of hundreds of thousands of kilometers of this project, and not with the high resolutions of about a meter at these distances. It all takes a lot. of computation. hours. About ten years ago, it would have taken months of computation to get one of the images from a receiver, and maybe a year or more of several. ”

These promising early results garnered support from the scientific community for the project, and at the end of September, the collaboration received $ 4.5 million in funding from the National Science Foundation to design ways to scale up the project. mid-scale research infrastructure design-1 AST-2131866). “After these designs, if we can attract full financial support, we will be able to build a system hundreds of times more powerful than the current system and use it to explore the solar system,” Beasley said. “Such a new system would open a window to the universe, allowing us to see our neighboring planets and celestial objects in a whole new way.”

West Virginia has a long history of settlements that have contributed significantly to the expansion of our scientific knowledge of the Universe. West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin III said: “New images and details of Tycho crater on the moon found using radar technology from the Green Bank Telescope show incredible scientific advancements being made right here in Virginia – Western. For more than two decades, GBT has helped researchers explore and better understand the Universe. Through my seat on the Trade, Justice and Science Credit Subcommittee, I have strongly supported these technological advancements at the GBT, which will now enable the GBT to transmit radar signals to space and fulfill its essential role in astronomical research for years to come. I look forward to seeing more incredible images and future discoveries of our solar system, and I will continue to work with the National Science Foundation to advocate for funding to support projects at the Bank’s Green Observatory.

This technology has been developed for years, as part of a cooperative research and development agreement between NRAO, GBO and RI&S. A future high-power radar system combined with GBT’s sky coverage will allow objects in the solar system to be imaged with unprecedented detail and sensitivity. Expect more exciting images this fall, as processing that early data with tens of billions of pixels of information is worth the wait.

The National Radio Astronomical Observatory and the Green Bank Observatory are facilities of the National Science Foundation, operated under a cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.