• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
• /
• 제31권2호
• /
• pp.131-140
• /
• 2014

Lava caves could be useful as outposts for the human exploration of the Moon. Lava caves or lava tubes are formed when the external surface of the lava flows cools more quickly to make a hardened crust over subsurface lava flows. The lava flow eventually ceases and drains out of the tube, leaving an empty space. The frail part of the ceiling of lava tube could collapse to expose the entrance to the lava tubes which is called a pit crater. Several pit craters with the diameter of around 100 meters have been found by analyzing the data of SELENE and LRO lunar missions. It is hard to use these pit craters for outposts since these are too large in scale. In this study, small scale pit craters which are fit for outposts have been investigated using the NAC image data of LROC. Several topographic patterns which are believed to be lunar caves have been found and the similar pit craters of the Earth were compared and analyzed to identify caves. For this analysis, the image data of satellites and aerial photographs are collected and classified to construct a database. Several pit craters analogous to lunar pit craters were derived and a morphological pit crater model was generated using the 3D printer based on this database.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
• /
• 제33권1호
• /
• pp.21-28
• /
• 2016

Caves can serve as major outposts for future human exploration of the Moon and Mars. In addition, caves can protect people and electronic equipment from external hazards such as cosmic ray radiation and meteorites impacts and serve as a shelter. Numerous pit craters have been discovered on the Moon and Mars and are potential entrances to caves; the principal topographic features of pit craters are their visible internal floors and pits with vertical walls. We have devised two topographical models for investigating the relationship between the topographical characteristics and the inner void of pit craters. One of our models is a concave floor void model and the other is a convex floor tube model. For each model, optical photographs have been obtained under conditions similar to those in which optical photographs have been acquired for craters on the Moon and Mars. Brightness profiles were analyzed for determining the profile patterns of the void pit craters. The profile patterns were compared to the brightness profiles of Martian pit craters, because no good-quality images of lunar pit craters were available. In future studies, the model profile patterns will be compared to those of lunar pit craters, and the proposed method will likely become useful for finding lunar caves and consequently for planning lunar bases for manned lunar expeditions.

• 대한토목학회논문집
• /
• 제38권6호
• /
• pp.859-865
• /
• 2018

달 지상 인프라 및 기지 건설은 건설재료나 에너지 확보가 가능한 지역과 연계되어야 하며, 얼음 등의 핵심 자원이 풍부한 영구음영 지역을 형성하는 달 크레이터 지형의 탐지와 정보 수집이 선행되어야 한다. 본 연구에서는 이러한 달 크레이터(crater) 객체 정보를 최신 딥러닝 알고리즘을 이용해 효과적으로 자동 탐지하는 방안에 대해 고찰하였다. 딥러닝 학습을 위해 NASA LRO 달 궤도선의 레이저 고도계 데이터를 기반으로 구축된 9만개의 수치표고모델과 개별 수치표고모델에 존재하는 크레이터들의 위치와 크기를 레이블링한 자료를 활용하였다. 딥러닝 학습은 최신 알고리즘인 Faster RCNN (Regional Convolution Neural Network)을 자체적으로 코드화하여 적용하였다. 이를 통해 학습된 딥러닝 시스템은 학습되지 않은 달표면 이미지 내 크레이터를 자동 인식하는데 적용되었으며, NASA에서 인력에 의해 정의한 크레이터 정보들의 오류를 자동 보정 가능하고, 정의되지 않은 많은 크레이터 까지도 자동 인식 가능함을 보였다. 이를 통해 공학적으로 매우 가치가 있는 각 지역별 크레이터들의 크기 분포 특성 및 발생 빈도 분석 등이 가능하게 되었으며, 향후에는 시간 이력별 변화추이도 분석 가능할 것으로 판단된다.

• 천문학회지
• /
• 제55권3호
• /
• pp.75-86
• /
• 2022

The lunar surface progressively darkens and reddens as a result of sputtering from solar wind particles and bombardment of micrometeoroids. The extent of exposure to these space weathering agents is frequently calculated as the location in a diagram of reflectance at 750 nm vs. 950 nm/750 nm color (R-C). Sim & Kim (2018) examined the R-C trends of pixels within ~3,500 craters, and revealed that the length (L) and skewness (s) of R-C trends can be employed as a secondary age or maturity indicator. We broaden this research to general lunar surface areas (3,400 tiles of 0.25° × 0.25° size) in 218 mare basalt units, whose ages have been derived from the size-frequency distribution analysis by Hiesinger et al. (2011). We discover that L and s rise with age until ~3.2 Gyr and reduce rather rapidly afterward, while the optical maturity, OMAT, reduces monotonically with time. We show that in some situations, when not only OMAT but also L and s are incorporated in the estimation utilizing 750 & 950 nm photometry, the age estimation becomes considerably more reliable. We also observed that OMAT and the lunar cratering chronology function (cumulative number of craters larger than a certain diameter as a function of time) have a relatively linear relationship.

• 천문학회보
• /
• 제46권2호
• /
• pp.48.2-48.2
• /
• 2021

The lunar surface progressively darkens and reddens as a result of sputtering from solar wind particles and bombardment of micrometeoroids. The extent of exposure to these space weathering agents is frequently calculated as the location in a diagram of reflectance at 750 nm vs. 950 nm/750 nm color (R-C). Sim & Kim (2018) examined the R-C trends of pixels within ~3,500 craters, and revealed that the length (L) and skewness (s) of R-C trends can be employed as a secondary age or maturity indicator. We broaden this research to general lunar surface areas (3,400 tiles of 0.25° × 0.25° size) in 218 mare basalt units, whose ages have been derived from the size-frequency distribution analysis by Hiesinger et al. (2011). We discover that L and s rise with age until ~3.2 Gyr and reduce rather rapidly afterward, while the optical maturity, OMAT, reduces monotonically with time. We show that in some situations, when not only OMAT but also L and s are incorporated in the estimation utilizing 750 & 950 nm photometry, the age estimation becomes considerably more reliable. We also observed that OMAT and the lunar cratering chronology function (cumulative number of craters larger than a certain diameter as a function of time) have a relatively linear relationship.

• 천문학회보
• /
• 제40권2호
• /
• pp.45.3-46
• /
• 2015

Space weathering agents such as micrometeoroids and solar wind particles continuously age the uppermost regolith of the lunar surface by comminuting as well as darkening and reddening. Among several maturity indices, we investigate median grain size () and optical maturity (OMAT) of the crater rim walls. Crater rim wall is the most immature place among the impact crater features because the vertical mixing process by mass-movement can enhance the gardening of regolith and the supply of immature materials in the deeper layer to the surface. More than 140 simple and complex craters were considered. Both and OMAT values of the inner rim wall initially increase as the crater size increases until ~10-20 km, then decrease. This transition crater size happens to correspond to the transition diameter from simple to complex craters. For larger craters, i.e., complex craters, it is clear that the inner rim wall of the craters formed in recent eras tend to remain fresh and become mature along with time. For the simple crater case, smaller craters are more mature, which is opposite to the case of complex craters. This is thought to be because smaller craters become flattened more quickly, thus have smaller vertical mixing in the regolith due to mass-movement. We will also discuss on the maturity indices of the crater rim walls at high latitudes as a function of the position angle to see the latitude dependence of the space weathering process.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
• /
• 제35권1호
• /
• pp.47-54
• /
• 2018

Moon mineralogy mapper ($M^3$)'s work proved that the moon is not completely dry but has some hydroxyl/water. $M^{3{\prime}}s$ data confirmed that the amount of hydroxyl on the lunar surface is inversely related to the measured signal brightness, suggesting the lunar surface is sensitive to temperature by solar insolation. We tested the effect of solar insolation on the local distribution of hydroxyl by using $M^3$ data, and we found that most craters had more hydroxyl in shade areas than in sunlit areas. This means that the local distribution of hydroxyl is absolutely influenced by the amount of sunshine. We investigated the factors affecting differences in hydroxyl; we found that the higher the latitude, the larger the difference during daytime. We also measured the pyroxene content and found that pyroxene affects the amount of hydroxyl, but it does not affect the difference in hydroxyl between sunlit and shaded areas. Therefore, we confirmed that solar insolation plays a significant role in the local distribution of hydroxyl, regardless of surface composition.

• 한국항공우주학회지
• /
• 제47권1호
• /
• pp.26-34
• /
• 2019

본 논문에서는 이산요소법을 이용하여 성긴 달토양 수치해석모델을 생성하고 그 정확도를 실제 달토양의 물리적 특성과 비교 및 검증한다. 실제 달의 표면은 다수의 분화구와 바위로 구성되어 있고 매우 미세한 건조토양으로 덮여있으므로 달토양 특성은 달착륙선의 착륙안정성을 결정짓는 중요한 인자이다. 따라서 달토양특성을 고려하기 위해 이산요소법을 이용하여 달토양의 수치해석모델을 생성하고 검증한다. 달토양 압입시험 및 직접전단시험을 해석적으로 구현하여 해석용 달토양이 실제 달토양과 유사한 물리적 특성(압입깊이, 점착력, 내부마찰각 등)을 갖는 것을 확인한다. 이렇게 생성한 달토양 모델 위에 single-leg 착륙장치 유한요소모델을 낙하시키는 해석을 통해 착륙장치 스트럿에 가해지는 충격하중을 예측하고 시험결과와 비교하여 제안된 방법의 적절성을 검토한다.

• 우주기술과 응용
• /
• 제1권1호
• /
• pp.49-63
• /
• 2021

태양계 천체 탐사는 다양한 탑재체를 통해 이루어지고 있고, 그에 따라 많은 연구 결과들이 나오고 있다. 우리는 태양계 천체 연구의 한 방법으로 딥러닝 적용을 시도해 보았다. 지구 관측 위성 자료와 다르게 태양계 천체 자료들은 천체들에 따라 탐사선에 따라 각 탐사선의 탑재체에 따라 그 자료의 형태가 매우 다르다. 그래서 학습시킨 모델로 다양한 자료에 적용이 어려울 수 있지만 사람에 의한 오류를 줄이거나, 놓치는 부분들을 보완해 줄 수 있을 것이라고 기대한다. 우리는 달 표면의 크레이터를 탐지하는 모델을 구현해 보았다. Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) 영상과 제공하는 shapefile을 입력값으로 하여 모델을 만들었고, 이를 달 표면 영상에 적용하여 보았다. 결과가 만족스럽지는 못했지만 이후 이미지 전처리와 모델 수정 작업을 통해 최종적으로는 ShadowCam에 의해 획득되는 달의 영구음영지역 영상에 적용할 예정이다. 이 외에도 달 표면과 비슷한 형태를 가진 세레스와 수성에 적용을 시도하여 딥러닝이 태양계 천체 연구에 또 다른 방법임을 시사하고자 한다.

• 천문학회보
• /
• 제37권2호
• /
• pp.138.2-138.2
• /
• 2012

Cave on the Moon is considered as the most appropriate place for human to live during the frontier lunar exploration. While the lava flows, the outer crust gets cooled and solidified. Then, the empty space is remained inside after lava flow stops. Such empty space is called the lava caves. Those lava tubes on the Earth are formed mostly by volcanic activity. However, the lava tubes on satellite like Moon and planet like Mars without volcanic activity are mostly formed by the lava flow inside of the crater made by large meteorite impact. Some part of lava tube with collapsed ceiling appears as the entrance of the cave. Such area looks like a deep crater so called a pit crater. Four large pit craters with diameter of > 60 m and depth of > 40 m are found without difficulty from Kaguya and LRO mission image archives. However, those are too deep to use as easily accessible human frontier base. Therefore, now we are going to identify some smaller lunar caves with accessible entrances using LRO camera images of 0.5 m/pixel resolution. Earth's lava caves and their entrances are well photographed by surface and aerial camera in immense volume. Thus, if the image data are sorted and archived well, those images can be used in comparison with the less distinct lunar cave and entrance images due to its smaller size. Then, we can identify the regions on the Moon where there exist caves with accessible entrances. The database will be also useful in modeling geomorphology for lunar and Martian caves for future artificial intelligence investigation of the caves in any size.