A Lunar Sunrise Over Tycho's Mountains : Big Pics

June 30, 2011 -- Orbiting high above the moon's surface, NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) took this spectacular oblique photograph of the interior of the famous Tycho Crater on June 10. Lying in the center of the "young" 110 million year-old crater, the LRO's camera (LROC) captured the sun rising over the craggy mountainous region jutting out of the lunar surface, resembling a black-and-white photo of a more terrestrial scene.

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However, something very interesting is on display atop the 2 kilometer-high lunar mountain range. A boulder, the size of a football field (120 meters wide), sits at the summit (pictured below), waiting to roll 2,000 meters down to the crater floor.

Although the mountains appear sharp and angular now, in hundreds of millions of years time, they will eventually be worn down by meteorites and micrometeorites, smoothing and eroding the peaks. At some point, assuming the boulder hasn't already been worn to dust, the mountain peak will erode, causing the boulder's footing to become less secure.

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Interestingly, how the mountains got there in the first place is a matter for debate. "Were these distinctive outcrops formed as a result of crushing and deformation of the target rock as the peak grew?" asks LROC's principal investigator, Mark Robinson. "Or do they represent preexisting rock layers that were brought intact to the surface?"

Alas, for those questions to be answered, we'll have to wait until astronauts can climb Tycho's mountains to collect some samples.

-- by Ian O'Neill

Credit/source: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University

Image: A close-up of the 120 meter-wide boulder atop Tycho's central mountain complex (NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University).

Image: An overhead view of Tycho Crater. The mountain range can be seen in the center of the photo, at approximately the same time of day the top mountain photo was captured (NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University).