Potential Geologic Issues of Von Kármán Crater Revealed by Multisource Remote Sensing Data

Abstract

Von Ká rmá n crater is the landing area for CE-4 mission, which provides a chance to further study the evolution of South-Pole Aitken basin. In this paper, the topography, composition, temperature and deep structures of Von Ká rmá n crater are systematically studied with LRO LOLA data, Clementine UV-VIS data, CE-2 CELMS data, and GRAIL data. Several potential geologic issues are postulated as follows: (1) There exists a difference for the southern and northern parts of the crater floor in topography. The surface topography is influenced by Leibnitz and Finsen events. (2) There exists an FTA-rich material in depth layer of the crater floor, and the later bombardments exposed the original material in the crater floor. And the material in depth is homogeneous. (3) The composition apparently changes with depth, and there exist a warm anomaly in the northern part of the crater floor and a cold anomaly in the southern part. (4) A large amount of magma has been uplifted after Von Ká rmá n M impact event, and the crust has been melted several times and condensed into dense basalt layer. Generally, this is a good place to measure the material from the original SPA basin and the material from the depth layer of the Moon for the CE-4 landing site.

Reevaluating Mare Moscoviense And Its Vicinity Using Chang’e-2 Microwave Sounder Data

“…The relationship between this low dT B anomaly and the east highlands is still not clear. Optimistically, after checking the T B performances in Von Kármán crater, the low noontime and nighttime T B anomalies clearly exist in the central part of the crater floor [54]. The on-going CE-4 mission is counted upon to bring some useful information to better understand the formation mechanism of the low dT B anomaly and its geologic representations.…”