The Moons Near Side Megabasin and Far Side Bulge Springerbriefs in Astronomy

Since Luna and Lunar Orbiter photographed the far side of the Moon, the mysterious dichotomy between the face of the Moon as we see it from Earth and the side of the Moon that is hidden has puzzled lunar scientists. As we learned more from the Apollo sample return missions and later robotic satellites, the puzzle literally deepened, showing asymmetry of the crust and mantle, all the way to the core of the Moon. This book summarizes the author’s successful search for an ancient impact feature, the Near Side Megabasin of the Moon and the extensions to impact theory needed to find it. The implications of this ancient event are developed to answer many of the questions about the history of the Moon. Front Matter....Pages i-xiii The Dichotic Shape of the Moon: Differences Between the Lunar Near Side and the Far Side....Pages 1-5 Hypervelocity Impact Features from Craters to Ringed Basins to Megabasins....Pages 7-14 Radial Elevation Profiles of Large Craters and Basins Establish Self-Similarity....Pages 15-21 A Model of Large Impact Craters and Basins: Their Cavities, Rims, and Ejecta Deposits....Pages 23-38 The Search for Megabasins to Model the Moon’s Large-Scale Topography....Pages 39-47 The Near Side Megabasin....Pages 49-74 The South Pole-Aitken Basin....Pages 75-87 The Chaplygin-Mandel’shtam Basin....Pages 89-96 History of the Crust of the Moon....Pages 97-110 Methods, Results, and Future Directions....Pages 111-116 Errata to: The Moon’s Near Side Megabasin and Far Side Bulge....Pages E1-E6 Back Matter....Pages 117-125