Orbiter's radar takes colorful lunar images of impact craters, will cast light on Moon's evolution – Times of India, The Times of India

NEW DELHI: Thesynthetic aperture radaron board Chandrayaan-2’s orbiter, circling at 100 km altitude over Moon’s surface, has taken colorful images of impact craters that will cast light on the age and origin of the craters in the lu nar south pole region, which, in turn, will help understand the evolution ofMoon.
Meanwhile , US space agency Nasa has clarified that its lunar orbiterLunar Reconnaissance Orbiterhas found no evidence of Vikram lander in the recent lunar images captured during a latest flyby of its orbiter.
impact craters are circular depressions on the lunar surface caused due to continuous bombardment of meteorites, asteroids and comets. The L & S bands of synthetic aperture radar (SAR), a powerful remote sensing instrument for studying planetary surfaces and subsurface, are giving details about the morphology of impact craters due to its ability of imaging with higher resolution and wide range of incidence angle coverage .
In addition, the greater depth penetration power of L-band (3-5 meter) is helping probe the buried terrain of Moon to a greater depth. The L & S bands are also helping in identifying and quantitatively estimating the lunar polar water-ice lying in permanently shadowed regions.
previous lunar-orbiting SAR with single S-band on Chandrayaan-1 orbiter and SAR on Nasa’s LRO had provided valuable data on scattering characterization of ejecta materials (material that came out of volcanic explosions) of impact craters.
Meanwhile , Nasa project scientist Noah Edward Petro said that the LRO images of the south pole area of ​​the targetedChandrayaan-2Vikram landing site on October 14 did not observe any evidence of the lander, an agency report said.
Petro said the camera team carefully examined the images and employed the change detection technique but could not locate the lander, which had made a hard landing on Moon in September.