The moon is actually a colorless stone ball. More than half a century ago, Apollo astronauts felt like they were in an old-fashioned black-and-white movie, with only shades of grey. The fact that we often see the Moon as a yellow-white celestial body is that the moonlight is actually a reflection of the sun’s rays.
However, there are slight color variations on the moon’s surface, caused by small differences in the composition of the moon rock. 19-year-old Ukrainian amateur astronomer Eldar Ibatulin artificially modified these small color differences and then greatly enhanced them. Blue shades now indicate material containing relatively high amounts of iron; In the orange areas there is more aluminum.
Ibatulin also used observations from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter to image the lunar surface topography. The LOLA instrument on board this successful lunar rover (Lunar lander laser altimeter) He created detailed maps of the Moon’s elevation using lasers. These height differences are also greatly exaggerated here.
Mountainous
Because of their sharp, pointed shadows, it was often assumed in the 17th and 18th centuries that the Mountains of the Moon were indeed steep. But this is not the case in reality: the surface of the Moon is relatively sloped; Sharp shadows are created because the Moon has no atmosphere. The altitude differences are impressive: there is a difference of about twenty kilometers between the highest and lowest points on the Moon.
What’s particularly striking about this particular image is that the area around the Moon’s south pole is much more mountainous than the Northern Hemisphere. It is precisely this uneven terrain that is the destination of many unmanned lunar probes. The first manned landing as part of NASA’s Artemis project is also scheduled to take place there, and is expected to take place within three years.
