image: This lunar topographic map shows the Orientale basin (930 km diameter), the largest young impact basin on the moon. This young basin formed from a projectile that impacted the Moon about 3.8 billion years ago, and penetrated deeply into the lunar crust, ejecting millions of cubic kilometers of material into the surrounding areas. The topography is derived from over 2.4 billion shots made by the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA) instrument on board the NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. These large basins show the effects of such impacts on early planetary crusts in the inner solar system, including the Earth. This image relates to an article that appeared in the Sept. 17, 2010, issue of Science, published by AAAS. The study, by Dr. James Head of Brown University in Providence, R.I., and colleagues was titled, "Global Distribution of Large Lunar Craters: Implications for Resurfacing and Impactor Populations." view more
Credit: Image: NASA/LRO/LOLA/GSFC/MIT/Brown